Aaron Jungels founded the Everett Dance Theatre in 1986 with his mother, Dorothy, and his two sisters, Rachael and Therese. The organization merged with Carriage House School in 2011 to become Everett.
Since then, the company has emphasized the exchange among the company, stage, and school, with a mission to bring live art to diverse audiences.
Everett’s “Bliss Body” is “a provocative and moving hour” of dance and theater, according to the company’s website. The show includes quiet meditation and energetic dancing. It considers peace and struggle and raises the question of how people find bliss in today’s sometimes turbulent work.
Here is a conversation. The full interview can be found here.
Aaron Jungels says that the idea that blossomed into “Bliss Body” came from a desire to create a place for diversity.
“We wanted ... a place where anybody could come from any social background, any economic background, any cultural background, and bring what they love to do and learn about what other people love to do, and just have a place where kind of joy could spring up. And I think it’s been that for a long time,” he says. “So the idea (for Bliss Body) came out of work we had done previously.
“The piece was kind of about how you heal from developmental trauma. But all of that work made us feel like we needed to explore the other side of things. We needed to find out how you connect to your bliss. How you find the meaning and the source of your own positivity and your own best abilities. And so that’s that led us to bliss.”
Taking an honest look
James Monteiro says the content of “Bliss Body” forces people to look at themselves at a much more honest level.
“We were definitely looking at our traumas much more in the beginning to kind of clear up the air so we can find our bliss and to get to what the piece is about,” he says. “We noticed that that’s something you can’t force.
“That’s something that happens naturally, and when, when you’re able to get through and heal yourself, then you can start to see that bliss is something that comes in the process of that. I would say emotionally, spiritually, if even physically.”
Christopher Johnson calls “Body Bliss” an “amazing transitional piece, noting that members of the ensemble joined with their own sets of issues and problems.
“And through that we’re working them out, as a unit, as an ensemble talking to each other, getting to know each other,’ he says. “All of us are finding our bliss in our own ways.
“It’s been amazing though to watch it come to fruition.”
Johnson believes that healing comes from taking the experiences in the ensemble
and incorporating them into their daily lives. That means learning to curb anger or walk away from potentially unproductive situations.
“Yes, it’s been healing for me, taking what I have here and incorporating it into the real world,” Johnson says.
Aaron Jungels says the work done at Everett is important because it brings different voices together while allowing each voice to be separate and heard.
“We’re more interested in human beings and what they bring to the table, where they’re at during the process, and what the meaning of these people coming together is,” Jungels says. “And just because of where we’re situated in the community that we serve, a lot of the people that we work with do have trauma histories, and theater and dance are very useful tools with those kinds of histories ... it does bring out a joy, and you are able to process things that you go through in a way where you can still have the joy to it.”
Changing an outlook on life
Ensemble member Grace Colonna says that while people want to control and change “outside stuff,” moving the needle favorably in one’s direction is when “you sit with yourself and go in.”
“It’s a demonstration of how things could be, or maybe a reminder that this way of living and thinking exists and it’s lovely and you can come and join us,” she says. “So, I think in that way, it will spread out to change also audiences and anyone who gets to partake in the process that way.”
Johnson believes that art has the power to change the world, and that “Bliss Body” will change anyone who watches it.
“I think that Aaron specializes in creating works that change people. Once somebody sees what we do here, nobody walks out the same they walked in. I’ve been influenced by that. He influenced me to want to be more like that,” he says. “I feel putting this out there and reminding people to follow their bliss. That every day that we go through, the hustle and bustle of whatever our lives are, it doesn’t have to be all pain.
“We can find those three or four seconds of joy and focus on that, instead of everything else.”
