Happiness Wins 2/5/11 Ken Alan, Sienna Gaines Part 1

I am Heidi J. Kan.
On February 5, 2011, I had a talk with Ken Alan - singer, dancer, actor, and retired professional Broadway dancer extraordinaire - and an aspiring young prima ballerina, Sienna Gaines - a student at Northwest Florida Ballet Academie in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Sienna had just received her pointe shoes.
Sienna Gaines and I had had a talk for my first Happiness Wins show in January, so this was our second interview. That show is a slideshow of Sienna at school with an excerpt of our conversation.
On February 5, we all converged, meeting togther for the first time at Sienna's house - Ken, his mother, his brother, Sienna, her mother and her father, and me, just a few minutes before Ken's brother, John, started the camera. It was unstructured. We had met to talk about what we loved in life. We talked about ballet, tap dance, expressing heart and soul through movement and about happiness winning.
My mother had just died, on December 31, and when I looked at the video file in order to edit it, I was struck by how baldly I was endeavoring to deal with my fear and anguish. It is interesting how technology can allow you to see yourself more objectively. The show, I see now, was an instrument of mourning. It has been therapeutic.
That day, the intent was for us to be ourselves and have fun. It was a good first effort at a group gathering, I thought. We all had a good time during the hour or so that we were all there together! There was a lot of love among us.
The desire that happiness should win is in our hearts from our earliest time in the womb and to the last breath and beyond. There is true happiness in not being afraid. When one has the power to reconcile one's painful feelings, it appears that everything can be okay. The art of expression heals.

Category:

Education

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• Happiness
• Wins
• dance
• Ken
• Alan
• Sienna
• Gaines
• Broadway
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• Northwest
• Florida
• Ballet
• Academie
• prima
• ballerina
• Tallahassee
• Theater
• Project
• tap
• love
• peace
• joy
• open
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• soul
• compassion