In Vital Dance, a night of insomnia gives way to a meditation on life and death. This piece alternates between a precise, almost metronomic motive and freer, lulling arpeggios—a hazy dream-state in which we’re counting our minutes or suspended in a timeless dance.

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This piece was commissioned by Eastern Tennessee State University Chorale (Matthew Potterton, Conductor).

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Peruse or purchase either voicing of this piece at Graphite Marketplace. 

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VITAL DANCE

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In bed, listening to the metronome in my ear, the tiny timekeeper
who will not let me sleep, taking life with each beat into the drum,

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tap by tap, a Morse code message in a long-lost language.

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Why do I sleep knowing that time will pass as I do? I am free to dance when Father Time is drowsy, lulled by the white coin in the sky, suspended

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between heads or tails. In those moments, we wait, hold

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our breath, and dance together in familiar emptiness from which we came and shall return one day, when our knees are weak and our hair a color

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akin to the moon.

One two heads three four tails five six last seven eight day

hush

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—Abby N. Lewis,
from Reticent (Grateful Steps, 2016; used with permission).