 our virtual community and our community that is here in the Mark Morris Dance Center space. Thank you for being with us to celebrate the 2022 Summer Leadership Institute culminating performance. During our Summer Leadership Institute, which is 10 days, today is the ninth day, we begin by grounding ourselves in the principles of entering, building, and exiting community. And as simple as a part of this learning are dancers, actors, educators, organizers, administrators, production folk who are with us on this journey of embodying what does it mean to question our We Democracy. So we began with the principles of entering, building, and exiting community. What does it mean to look at those values of how we are in community together? And then we go to our work with our longtime partner, People's Institute for Survival and Beyond PSAP, and the workshop is understanding and undoing racism slash community organizing. And we're looking at systemic analysis of how democracy works and who is invited and who is disinvited, who is supported and was not supported, who becomes the major beneficiaries, and who become the victims, really, of the system and how we can make it better by understanding its manifestations and how they show up in us. Then we look at organizing, and we had two amazing people, Karen Atlas and Dr. Kimberly Richards, who have been longtime organizers to talk about their journey and their road as we look at this question, are we democracy? We are here at the Mark Morris Dance Center, and we are on the unceded land of the Lenape people. We understand the resistance, the sacrifice, the struggle our indigenous brothers and sisters have gone through, those whose labor were forced, the African people who were here and their labor was forced. We bring all of that, all of that learning, all of that history into our dance, our songs, our texts, so that we integrate all of this knowledge in creative expression as a way to share and internalize what we know. And that's what we're sharing with you today is the journey we've been on creatively in these last nine days for the culminating performance of the 2022 Summer Leadership Institute performance. Thank you for being with us. This is the democracy story. Once upon a time, not too long ago, the people thought democracy was dead, and they began to mourn. A violent wind of deathly tornadoes with extra your guidance, Pia, in death and rebirth. Is this life? We hope to see you again. Now we say thank you. Every plant leaves a little behind, a little turnover, a sharing of the earth, the grass, an invasive dominance of white pick in the founding of the devil's eyes, colored red, white, and blue. For the privilege, the soil of its life, its nutrients, will let the justice burn like a righteous fire in natural tilling of the soil. Democracy working towards it. Backs curved, fists closed, then open. Breathing hands open to possibility. Looking to what we could be if we let go of what has only caused harm. Stolen lives, broken hearts, depleted souls. I want us to fulfill our promise. But first, repair. I thought I was in love with democracy. I mean, I was really, really full of hope. Thought I was the one. We were engaged, but after the honeymoon, all of so-called democracies, so-called friends, that they met at Electoral College started showing up at the house, refusing to leave, like Oleg Arke and Phil E. Buster. No, no, no, no, no. I think you all have it wrong. You must be talking about something else, because I've been getting to know democracy pretty well over the last couple of years, virtually. And we have our first date by mail in August. August. I actually went to college with this person that has been saying their name is democracy. I went to the Electoral College, and I just want to say that for one, I did not meet them at the club or online. But also, they're really that much of what their name is, as long as I'm getting what I need. And I am. The resources. Hold on, hold on. Because my democracy can't be your democracy. I'm a big ol' suburban and a Jesus piece. I've been messing with democracy since before the internet, before co-filing. In fact, we have two children together. And although we don't have a lot of exchanges as of late, he shows up in my bank account. I get paid weekly. She gets paid by democracy. Well, good for you, Gal, because I have been investing in democracy for many, many years. And I'm afraid this has taken a toll. I believed in democracy. Democracy broke my heart. Sorry about your heart. I'm going to let you finish, but hold on. We didn't clarify yet. Wait a minute. We all talking about the same democracy? Wait a minute. Y'all, are we democracy? Just want to stop and take stock of who I don't feel like talking. No time for laughing. Just let me be still. So my emotions can fill my heart. But everyone thinks that I am happy, go lucky. If they only knew heaviness of my heart and might be strong. So I could carry knowing the truth that strong it's the Lord. Oh, just take my hand and love. People starting to realize they had the power in their hands, in their hearts, in their bodies, in their minds. And they remembered the legacy of people like Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer. They remembered the power of the voice. But some languages surpass words. They travel past galaxies through time to ancestral lands and into the minds and bodies of those willing to receive. Yesterday, my body danced like it knew more than I did. Like it tapped into some kind of invisible knowledge or blood memory and has traveled with me through my DNA. What it is, power, they say. Born with it, it's been here. It moves through the years, I breathe it. And as I inhale, it partens my soul. What is this fun thing that's set in me? What is this smoke that's through my skin when the world's against me? Or loving me? Or shoving me down the road that I've been before? But it externally warns and noiselessly teaches the ones ahead of the music, the dance, the food, the struggles to enhance the people. This thing, it's in me. And I stand swaying like the trees bobbing in the breeze and it tells my story for centuries. It's humanity. It's in me. Oh, oh yeah, it's poetry. I'm not saying we'll not speak over me anymore because I will sing. My joy, my joy, my joy, I will sing, sing, sing, sing, sing. Nobody take my joy, my joy, my joy, I will sing. Donna Joe Baker, Rosa Parks, Els Horton, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, Medgar Evers, Catherine Dunham, Dr. Doris Derby, John O'Neill, Bob Moses, Betty Shabazz, Malcolm Eck, John Lewis, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We give thanks. We give thanks. We give thanks. Thank you.