Intro to Storytelling Capstone featuring Paige Walden-Johnson

This episode features Paige Walden-Johnson, a student in Campfire’s Intro to Storytelling class. You can learn more about Paige Walden-Johnson on the Campfire website, https://cmpfr.com/events/summer-2019-intro-to-storytelling/.

 These episodes of The Campfire Storytelling Podcast showcase students who went through our Intro to Storytelling class. These students take a six-week class to prepare to tell a story about life and how they live it. Season 27 students told stories about “labels.”. 

This episode was originally performed in August 2019, produced by Jeff Allen, and recorded live at The Stage at KDHX. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

[ Intro music]

Speaker 3: 0:12

Hello again, Internet. I'm Steven Harowitz, and I will be your host for this episode of Campfire at Home recorded here in St. Louis, Missouri. Almost every month, we gather at the Campfire to hear stories about life and how we live it from the everyday voices that live around us. Campfire at Home is how we bring that live storytelling experience to you wherever you are. In this episode, I have something special for you because we have stories to share from the Capstone event of our Season 9 Intro to Storytelling class. These stories come from students who signed up for a class through Campfire to learn about public speaking and storytelling, and in that first class, the students come in nervous, excited and looking around, not quite knowing who each other are yet, but then they slowly get to know one another as they collectively reflect on their lives through story. They started to see the output of their training and the power and liberation of owning and sharing their narrative, and even when it got scary or their nerves crept up, they kept choosing to take on the challenge. And then there they were onstage in the lights delivering some truly delightful and some truly heavy stories in their natural voices. This series of podcasts includes the five Introduc to Storytelling students, Amy, Paige, Jenna, Lizzie, and Melinda telling a story on the topic of labels. And when the event ended, beyond the hugs and smiles each storyteller got from those who had come to support them. Molly, who was their instructor this Season, and myself got to say a heartfelt congratulations to five people with newfound skills in storytelling, confidence in their voice when speaking publicly, and an understanding of the power of story. Let's head to the Campfire to listen to Paige's story on labels.

Speaker 5: 2:08

Good evening. I love to move. I love to tap my feet and groove my shoulders to any beat. I especially love to manipulate my relationship with gravity. I've always struggled with how I labeled my love for this movement in my life. I've labeled it as a hobby. Others have labeled it as a bad behavior or a nuisance, but most of my life I have labeled it as my dream career. Ever since my mom, I had my little tight bun and my tiny little shoes as a five year old and I was pushed into a dance class, I knew that dance and movement was going to be an integral part of my life. I wanted to be a professional dancer, but that perfect picture that I created my whole life was shattered just two years ago when I received a text message. I was at the dance studio, and I pulled out my phone and my phone lit up with little green bubble and it said, Rain has been shot. On February 6, 2017, a fellow dancer, Lorraine Stevick, endured eight bullets to the torso. she was walking back to her car when she was caught in the crossfires of a random act of gun violence. They rushed her to SLU Hospital. She died, but they revived her. She was alive, but barely. That night as I was grieving yet celebrating that she miraculously survived this horrific incident, I kept reloading my Google news to see if I could just get a little, little piece of information of what's going on. I kept scrolling Facebook, and all I saw were pictures of Rain with mutual friends under the hashtag#prayforrain, but was she in a surgery right now? Was she even alive at this moment? And if I just knew something, maybe I could help, but what is a dancer going to do for someone on life support? There was no amount of piourettes that I could complete that would make her organs function on their own. There wasn't a magical dance that was going to make St. Louis safer. It doesn't matter how high my leg will go. She is still fighting for her life. I started to notice how this news reacted in my body. I fell into this state of zombie floating to work, back to home, sometimes never making it a work and staying at home. I didn't dance. I wasn't practicing my riff locks in the perfectly acoustic aisles in the grocery store. I was frozen. I was like that one time my high school teacher took out the duct tape and strapped my feet to the floor during our final because my subconscious tapping was disrupting all my fellow students. I was stuck in this place o uncertainty. I started to lose weight. I stopped eating, and I would marvel at my clavicle that would sit out of my shirt and I would just wonder if only I was this skinny in college. I finally got my 105 pound goal as a dancer. If I was this size in college, maybe I wouldn't have been called out to not eat Thanksgiving dinner in front of my classmates because I'm too curvy. It took a late night private ambulance ride to the hospital for me to make a change. I was cooking dinner one night. I passed out, I hit my head, and when I woke up there was this terrible ringing in my ears. And when I opened my eyes, this blurred vision revealed a very worried face of my husband mouthing words I couldn't hear. And I started to realize why he was worried. My face was pale, my lips were blue and I realized I wasn't breathing. I felt like my whole body was shutting down sense by sense. As I was in the hospital bed that night, as they poked and prodded, IVs and tests, I vowed to myself I was going to make a change. I cut out all the toxic parts of my life and only put in things I needed for myself because what am I going to do if I'm in a hospital bed next to Rain? How can I help the situation if I'm hurting myself? I turned things around by fostering a little bit of movement very day. I would draw. I would journal. I did some yoga and Pilates, and I learned how to play the ukulele really badly, and I eventually got back into dance class. I got into dance class only if I could dance for myself. A few months later, Rain is still in the hospital and her medical bills were accruing to the millions even with insurance. A group of artists got together, and we decided let's use the talents we have to help offset the cost with a small performance, see what we can do, but the end product was bigger than we ever imagined. It became this festival. We called it Community Arts Festival where we gathered universities and professional dance companies and students of Rain's to gather on the Grandel Stage, not only for Rain anymore, but for our city that is being plagued by violence. We also invited city officials and community leaders to host discussions, workshops and seminars to just start unraveling these deeply rooted historical issue that is in our streets. After the event was over, I was exhilarated by the amount of success I had. We raised$10,000 for Rain, and we were starting discussions that needed to be said in these spaces, but most importantly I found what a dancer can do. A dancer can be a catalyst for change. Fast forward to the present. We are in our third year under the name Community Arts STL where we communicate, educate and heal the effects of St. Louis violence through the arts. And I'm sure you're wondering about Rain. Her organs are functioning on their own. Well, what's left of them. She is unplugged from machines. She has her colonoscopy bag reversed, and she can eat even though every doctor said that would never happen in her whole life. And one day she finally shakedly, but courageously pushed herself out of the hospital bed to take her first steps towards learning how to walk. In fact, in just a couple weeks, hold on, I skipped something. I'm going to go back. It's very important. You'll laugh. I swear. Exactly. One year after Rain's shooting, she coined the day her Rain-aissance. Yeah, landed? Cool. And miraculously she was back in the dance studio exactly one year performing the most beautiful tendus and plies I've ever seen. In fact, in a couple of weeks, she will be debuting at our third annual Community Arts Concert, dancing for the first time on stage, gracing the stage with this beautiful story of survival. I needed that story. I needed the tragedy to kick me down and have myself pick myself up and find what was important to me and what I found was that movement was important. I am a mover. I don't move as a hobby. I don't move to pay my bills. I move so I'm able to mobilize a community for a safer St. Louis. Thank you.

Speaker 4: 12:23

[ Applause]

Speaker 3: 12:32

And that is a wrap. You can make sure to hear the other episodes from our Season 9 Intro to Storytelling graduates by subscribing to Campfire at Home, wherever you get your podcasts. And if you liked what you heard, please leave a review on your podcast listening platform of choice. You probably hear it all the time, but it really does help others find our podcast and it supports our students. If you're in the St. Louis area, we'd love to have you come out to an event or take a class. You can visit cmpfr.com, that's C M P F R.com for all of the details. And for those of you that don't live in St. Louis who just want to know more about the work we do here at Campfire, you can also visit our website cmpfr.com, that's C M P F R.co. As always, a big thank you to the Campfire team, Mariah, Ethan, Gabriela, Molly, and Jess, our photographer Sarah Wilson, our videographer and podcast producer, Jeff Allen and home for our classes, TechArtista. Tonight's stories were recorded live at the Focal Point in Maplewood, Missouri. Thanks for listening to Campfire at Home. I've been your host, Stephen Harowitz. Until next time.