Deshon and the Action

A pastor who once served with me sent an email. “You must be proud. I was looking at the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Sunday. There was a full page ad by Target. It was about your son and his wife.”

Well, still not adjusted to having sired a celebrity, I made arrangements to obtain the several day old papers. Sure enough, there it was a picture of my son and my daughter-in-love, dancing with some kindergarten kids in a classroom of an Atlanta inner city elementary school. Target was, rightly so, touting their contributions to the arts program which brought these performers to the classroom.

The setting of the picture was familiar. I remember the first time they danced for the kids at the school.

Posture erect, white shirt, military stiff, a striking contrast to navy blue pants, he entered the room. The receptionist greeting him, said, “Oh, there you are. These are the people from the dance group.”

“Hello,” he extended his hand. “My name is Deshon.”

Shaking his hand, I responded, “Well, I’m glad to meet you Deshon.” I told him my name and then pointed toward Matt and Emily. I introduced them as the dancers.

“Glad to meet you,” Deshon replied, reaching for their extended hands. This kid was in kindergarten and had more social graces than a lot of adults.

“You’re a fine looking, fellow, Deshon,” I said. “Are you married?”

Deshon gave me a look that questioned sanity and he held the stare. Obviously he’d not been asked this question before. He recovered quickly, however, looked me in the eye, and said calmly, “No sir. I’m not married. I’m only six.”

He then said to us, “If you will please follow me I’ll show you where the performance will be.”

Down the long maze of hallways that ambled through the complex of the John Hope Elementary School in downtown Atlanta, we followed our leader. The school is adjacent to the Martin Luther King Center. It is a bright light of opportunity for the inner city kids who populate its classrooms.

My son and his wife, founder of the Pickle Shoes Dance Company and, as the Atlanta paper said, performers with an internationally acclaimed dance company, were still jubilant from their successful performances a few weeks before at New York’s Lincoln Center and Atlanta’s Fox Theater. But now they were doing what they really love to do: bringing an international dance experience to a kid’s classroom.

The school was impressive. Clean. Bright. Cheerful. The children were all dressed as Deshon. This is a progressive school, led my administrators and teachers determined to change a generation.

In a large classroom, furniture and supplies had been put away to make room for the dancers. My son quickly pulled me aside to explain all the cues. I was the sound man for this performance, charged with the proper pushing of “pause” and “play” at the precise moment on the CD player.

The children arrived. The performance began. They laughed. They clapped. They screamed. And, on invitation, they danced with the performers. Between numbers they politely listened. In all, with enthusiasm, they watched and participated.

During the times the kids were talking with the dancers, I kept staring at their teacher. There was something about her. She was strikingly attractive, tall and thin. Her eyes were full of life and playfulness, contrasting her no-nonsense demeanor. Her interaction with the children was captivating. When things did not meet her standard, she’d exclaim, “Oh my, what happened here?” And soon corrected behavior was proudly exhibited.

At some point, my son walked over to where I was to retrieve some prop. “Who’s she?” I asked him in a whisper.

“The teacher,” he replied.

“Duhhhh!” I answered. “What’s her name?”

“Edson,” he said. “Maggie Edson.”

He walked away to resume dancing with Deshon and his classmates again. I kept looking at the teacher. Edson? Edson? And then it hit me. She was Maggie Edson, the Maggie Edson.

Years ago Maggie Edson was working in a cancer ward of a research hospital. Daily she bumped up against the pathos that faced the patients, their families, and the medical staff attempting to deal with the consequences of the acute disease. One day Maggie Edson sat down and began to write.

The result of her writing was a play whose heroine is diagnosed with cancer. The drama centers on the ethics which lie behind the need to experiment with different kinds of drugs in cancer treatment. There’s tragedy in the play, grimness. But it is a story of love and knowledge, a tale of grace and redemption. While it centers on death and dying the audiences learn lessons for the living.

Maggie Edson’s play, Wit, won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize. HBO turned it into a movie in 2001.

What a day it was. I sat on a table pushed up against the wall in the back of a classroom in an inner city school. There before me were international dance stars interacting with, a class full of children, taught by a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

When the kids had finished dancing with the dancers and the time was over, I watched Deshon and his classmates depart, laughing and happy. I saw the above-average demeanor of those children. I witnessed the love they have for their teacher. Well they should love her. She gave up the bright lights of Broadway, teaching at Yale or Harvard or Smith, to say nothing of fame, to be where she is.

She invited my son and his wife to perform there for the same reason she decided to be a kindergarten teacher. It’s where the action is.