Why are Tara Sanders & Earl Legister, Jr. together?
"We always connected on the dance floor," Tara says emphatically. And Earl agrees.
Of course, there is no way of ever knowing, exactly, what brings two people together, on the dance floor and off. That alchemy is long-studied, long-pondered. But for the last year-plus, the strange chemical equation called 'love' has Tara and Earl in its grips, and they are dancing together, and inspiring others to do the same, especially recently.
"When Covid first hit, and I was taking stock, I thought 'how can we spread joy, not the virus?'" Tara says. She is a yoga teacher, specifically trained in trauma-informed yoga. We met, Tara and I, at a mindfulness in education workshop at Omega Institute years back, and she'd reached out recently when I bought a house near where she lives outside of Woodstock, NY. But neither yoga nor mindfulness was what she and Earl decided to do to spread joy. Instead, they started making dance videos, lots of them, short choreographed dances, and putting them on social media.
People took notice, including me. I love to dance myself, and their videos were so fun and authentic. Then, too, after the George Floyd video, the fact of their biracial coupling...well, it seems a good time to talk about cross-pollination, about the love and connection that exists between people of different colors and backgrounds.
Listen in as we chat about this lovely couple's dancing, and their diligent work building community--check out more about Tara's yoga work at https://www.tarasanders.net/.