SATURDAYS in JUNE @ NOON, 2022 @ Anita’s Way, Times Square c/o chashama
Independent space travel for free people. Come one and all to Kaleidoscope! Here we will mirror and multiple each other’s patterns along the long stage of Anita’s Way. Grande finale through Times Square? Everything is possible. Fun first.
FLIGHT18 has provided space travel for all since 2010. Known for breaking all laws of time and space, the Spaceship Kaleidoscope brings ensembles of passengers together to boldly go wherever they want to go. FLIGHT18 has launched from Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Governor’s Island, Grand Central Station and elsewhere.
Please feel free to join us at Anita’s Way, 137 West 42nd Street, Saturdays at Noon in June.
Let us know you’re coming by e-mailing FLIGHT18now at gmail dot com
Here’s a How-to Kaleidoscope video:
PLEASE NOTE: there are no bathrooms or place to store your stuff while you are Kaleidoscoping
HERE IS MY FINAL REFLECTION dated 6/26/22
I FEEL LOVE
WALLY REFLECTIONS ON FLIGHT18 @ ANITA’S WAY, JUNE 2022
When it comes to FLIGHT18 my answer has always been, yes. So, after a few quick Yeses I was scheduled with Chashama to Kaleidoscope in Anita’s Way every Saturday in June at noon for two hours. After the many, many pandemic days I was indeed eager to say Yes to any opportunity to reconnect with FLIGHT18 and the real world. What transpired was beyond my wildest dreams.
The I Ching consults this morning with, “Steady as she goes.” “Life is meant to be a paradoxical ironical puzzle that can only be solved by following the true and the good and through being selfless and sincere.” “Go on.” From the beginning, the first step from subway to Anita’s Way, I was on a pilgrimage, a prayformance, destined to reunite with life as experienced through what I have called, for twenty years now, FLIGHT18. The irony is not lost on me that Anita’s Way is located at the exact location I first articulated the vision of FLIGHT18 to Anita Durst herself in 2002. The song that rounded the experience from first to last was Donna Summer’s I Feel Love.
The Dance Remix is what I walked the 8-minute walk with to the space, inspiring smiles, and boogie along the way. Upon arrival I first cleaned the stage of trash and spills, before lighting a candle and smudging. Song after song I’d record as the exploration of Kaleidoscoping commenced with anyone and everyone. How do we interact with one another without coaxing, with only the joy of connection? Egolessness opens all doors. I danced a full James Brown song, “The Payback”, with a pigeon! Very true, very real.
I made human friends too. So many. Mareno, cleaning the south restaurant’s patio, greeted me warmly to the space in español. Ronald Forest of Albany, Georgia taught us to “bounce to the beat” when Kaleidoscoping. Maude is Swiss-born 1981-baby who is ready to marry for citizenship. Zoe, from Florida, came out of her shell and danced in front of all the passersby’s! Newlyweds Ravi and Araffa
took the Space Travel Assessment of Readiness, 18s each. It all seemed prelude to a full Kaleidoscope with an individual who never exchanged a word with me throughout “Slavery Days”.
We had a first listen of “Work” with Massachusetts’s rapper TylerGifted. Sisters Krissy and Bella of the L.E.S. band, Constellation, became fast friends with an encore dance to Janelle Monae’s “Q.U.E.E.N.”
Scott from the Woodstock Senior Center ended my second flight. I saw him during my third flight when he gave me wisdom from Jimi Hendrix, “Close your eyes and listen, it’s all the TRUTH of LIFE.” I bumped into him in on Fulton Street in Crown Heights before the fourth flight when he met me by chance at the entrance. Right on time. He reveled his true street name to me (not to be disclosed) and dubbed me the Magistrate of Love.
“God is in charge. Period.” “If you’ve got knowledge, you’ve got to SHARE IT!” yelled big Vincent to me during the final biblical act, in the wake of Roe. “There is strength in numbers.”
Oh, skateboarder/graffiti artist Anthony Cleverman showed where to draw power from center stage. He said he charges up every day when he meets his girlfriend there at Anita’s Way.
Many people take a rest on the stage, light up or have their lunch. Sometimes a stranger gets up on the stage to perform for the people. Because the stage is there, a blessing to New York, a public space. FLIGHT18 feels quite at home and enjoys the opportunity to be open and available to the people. With the lights, video, and sound on, with an ensemble of dancers it will certainly blow minds. And the potential to walk into Times Square with dancers, and music on wheels is a potentially wonderful non-violent explosion of love.
What began as a request to dance, ended with a far-out exploration of this moment in time as seen through Anita’s Way and FLIGHT18. From here now, the future looks fine when we fight fascism with freedom.