“Taylor allowed me to be a whole person,” Edwards said, adding that that helped them realize they weren’t so vulnerable or fragile. “I hold power as well, and together we make a statement. And together, it felt like there was magic.”
The dancers weren’t strangers. In 2022, Stanley invited Edwards to be a part of a program at Jacob’s Pillow. “I feel connected to Ashton in a way where they help me see things about myself that I may have dimmed,” Stanley said. “Knowing Ashton, I always feel this sense of courage and bravery. I feel we were able to translate that onstage.”
At first, Edwards didn’t know if they would wear that original costume, by Humberto Leon, as they had in Seattle; part of them thought to go with a shirt and jeans to be more like Stanley. “I wanted to feel just like Taylor,” they said.
But Edwards went with the costume for its “unidentifiable creature” quality, as they put it. “When I put it on, you couldn’t really tell what I was anymore,” Edwards said, “and I liked that. And it also showed off my assets, the things that I like to use, like my legs and arms. So to just be legs and arms and to lose my identity felt right for this piece.”
Edwards is all too aware of being perceived as different. “Being darker skinned and nonbinary, not looking like the average person, it’s difficult sometimes, obviously,” they said. But for these performances, “I felt like I had the chance to blend in, and I made the active decision to be myself.”
Beyond the dancing, it was that sense of freedom that left an indelible image and a shock — the good kind — of “What just happened.” “We both were making these bold decisions,” Edwards said, “and confessing these bold ideas for a lot of people, and doing those things confidently to just say, ‘This is me, this is who I am, and I can’t be anything else.’”
