‘Broken Mishkan’: An artist’s journey with chronic illness
by Ben Stocking, Point Reyes Light, February 8, 2023

Sara Nesson used to revel in hiking adventures, kayaking journeys and long-distance swims. Now a three-minute walk exhausts her. A debilitating illness—chronic fatigue syndrome—forced her to turn to different sources of joy and creativity: theater and visual art. Now she’s committed herself to bringing visibility and equity to other artists living with disabilities.

A longtime Marin County resident, Ms. Nesson will share her story during a virtual one-woman show, “The Broken Mishkan,” sponsored by the Dance Palace. “Mishkan” is a Hebrew word for sacred space. As a very personal space, a mishkan could be a temple or a mountain or an art studio, Ms. Nesson said. It could be any physical or spiritual place that is of deep value to the person who embraces it. Supported by a grant from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Ms. Nesson is leading an initiative to unite artists with disabilities, community leaders and arts programmers. She’s hoping to spark an ongoing conversation that gives artists whose work might otherwise be overlooked more opportunities to share it.

Her Dance Palace event, which will be held via Zoom, is intended to draw more people into that conversation. The show depicts her artistic and spiritual journey in the years since she was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, or myalgic encephalomyelitis. She addresses the camera directly but injects a lot of physicality into her performance using just her hands, her arms and her shoulders. “It’s a joyful story about creativity,” she said. “It’s about my love of art, and my belief that creativity is a doorway to the sacred. It’s about how my connection to the wilderness has helped me continue to find a meaningful place in the world.”

Before Ms. Nesson’s illness forced her to stop working nine years ago, she had a varied career in Jewish and interfaith education that included stints mentoring teenagers, performing as an actress and musician, and working as a travel writer. She’s hoping other artists living with illness or disability will join her Dance Palace event and share their stories in the conversation that follows her performance. “Chronic illnesses are very challenging, but a lot of people are living with them,” she said. “It’s really important that we talk more about these things. It’s such a common human condition.”

“The Broken Mishkan” begins at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12. More information is available at www.dancepalace.org.