Where do you respond, from inside your body, when you find joy?

Do you take a breath and emit a squeal? A note of song? Perhaps accompanied with a jump, or a blissful fall to the floor with a grateful note of thanks?

There are certainly an infinite variety of ways we express our jubilation. But, who can argue that we take that first inhalation while we are becoming aware of the news, the thought, the imagined picture? And doesn't it come back out, almost always, with sound and movement?

In this season's AbunDANCE, we are presenting work that was choreographed as a response to the joyful first intake of breath, coming back out as a chant, or a song, or channeled into a wind instrument.

I first saw Robert Battle's Takademe when it was performed at Houston's Dance Salad the same year Ballet Memphis was the only American ballet company invited to appear. The solo is powerful and utterly physical yet has a humorous undercurrent. When modernist choreographer Jane Comfort and composer/performer Kirk Whalum collaborated on the work premiering at this show, what resulted was a pieces that follows a person's struggle to find their way to a joyful elevation. Broad Waters is the story of a community of people bound together by the river they live near. And we're pleased to once again perform Trey McIntyre's Second Before the Ground.

Whatever brings you joy in life, find it, embrace it and watch it flourish.