Two lives in step

Question: How do you get even a few moments with Haley Henderson-Smith and her husband, Easton Smith, who are understudies to the leads dancing in the ensemble on the national tour of the stage version of Eleanor Bergstein’s Dirty Dancing?

Answer: You use e-mail, cellphone, and your own legs to catch them after one of their weekly understudy rehearsals, 
after one of their ballet classes, at the stage door after one of their eight performances a week, or at a daytime testimony meeting or a Sunday service in a Christian Science church.

For me, the last option proved best. “For us,” says Haley, “nothing is more important than these services.” She says she couldn’t imagine how they’d survive their performance and training schedule without the predictable inspiration of church.

“There’s a delicate balance to maintain” explains Easton. “In our line of work there’s so much emphasis on the material body, and so many rules one’s supposed to follow. Watch your weight, take more protein, use the gym, don’t get injured, ice those muscles, stretch this or that to make it hurt less, and all the time we’re trying to focus on the spiritual qualities that come from God instead of stressing about maintaining a material body.”

Tough though it is at times, they both pray about these things, and say they especially love to read the Christian Science Bible Lessons in any spare moments they can find between rehearsals and training sessions. “And, you know, the wonderful part is, for us, not a week goes by without a handful of healings,” says Easton. “Even in the most strenuous lift or leap on stage, we pray to know that we’re in a place where we can’t be harmed. We’re in God’s care. Yes, it’s our job to stay physically fit—that’s what we’re paid to do. But we have obligations of 
another kind, too.”

“And most of them are to God,” adds Haley. “We agree that the work we most want to do, the place we need to be, is where we can do the most good for others. But we can’t honestly say where that is right now. There’s always more to learn, and more to see. And we’re just going to let God work that out.

“The thought that keeps coming to mind,” continues Haley, “is ‘all that I have is thine,’ from the Bible story of the prodigal son. Then I think of Jesus speaking of gathering fruit for eternal life, and his assurance that ‘the fields . . . are already white for harvest’ (John 4:35, New King James Version). And when we think about our careers, we focus on the idea that ‘. . . progress is the law of God, whose law demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil’ (Science and Health, p. 233). It’s pretty clear to us that we’re not just waiting around to be sustained. We mustn’t settle for running in place. There’s got to be progress. It’s always got to be better than the last time.”

“Which is exactly how we feel about Dirty Dancing,” says Easton. “If you’d asked me three years ago if I thought I could play the Patrick Swayze role, I’d have laughed in your face. And here I am, as an understudy, getting to do just that once a week on tour.”

I wondered how Easton, whom Haley introduced to Christian Science only three years ago, prepares for each 
performance.

“One thing I do before I go on stage is to look up into the top of the theater and imagine the roof coming off so that I can look straight into the sky and see the stars shining predictably in their right place. And I think of people around the world, sleeping or waking up, but all in God’s good care. Then I look around me and see the cast and the audience anticipating a show that will send their toes tapping and their spirits soaring, and I know they’re in their right place, too. I quietly confirm that I’m also in my perfect place, right now, with another opportunity to express God through my performance. Whatever happens, even if I mess up a little, I know that at that moment I’m as close to God as I’ll ever be. So I don’t need to worry about anything. And that relaxes me into my part.”

But it wasn’t always this way with Easton. He readily admits his career has taken off since he came to know about Christian Science—through 
Haley, whom he met when they were dancers with Ballet San José in California. Haley was hired after six years with the 
Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, and had been dancing for just a few months in San José when Easton was brought in specifically to be her partner. She is 5’10”, and he is 6’5”.

Though raised a Christian, Easton’s life had never been easy. He resisted the idea of a punishing God, and soon stopped believing in God at all. He left home at the age of 15, and didn’t complete high school. He smoked and drank too much, got snarled in unhealthy relationships, and became deeply depressed. All he really wanted to be was “this cool party guy
 everybody liked and loved.”

When Easton and Haley first danced together, he was immediately attracted to her, though he just as quickly realized how different she was. “She was quiet, composed, nothing 
ruffled her,” he recalls. “I knew I wanted all that she had in her life, but I wasn’t at that time prepared to make the changes I guessed she would expect from me. So we agreed to just be friends.”

Haley admits she was also quickly attracted to her tall, handsome new partner, but didn’t let his lifestyle impress her for an instant. She could see that his behavior was little more than a façade. She told herself: “This isn’t really him at all. And he knows I can see through it. He’s just telling me everything to scare me away. If I can be patient, and firm, and can just help him clear away the garbage, I’ll find the man I’ve spotted below the surface—innocent, pure, sensitive, childlike.”

At first Easton couldn’t believe what was happening, says Haley. “He admitted no one had ever been so accepting of him. And I explained that, in the spiritual realm, all that stuff had never attached itself to him. With a mental change of gear, he could sweep it aside so that the real Easton could shine through.”

“And to think I could have done that a long time ago!” chips in Easton with a laugh. “Haley made it so clear to me that young people can have a good time without being a total dork. And she was living proof of that. She’d shown that if you’re kind and loving and firm in your stand, people respect you for your choices. It was a transformation I’d never have believed possible just a few years back. Suddenly, drugs, drinking, and depression were a thing of the past. And we got married—two years ago! So you can imagine how grateful I am. Life is totally different.”

And what of the future? Haley is quick to respond: “God has cared for us so well every step of the way, that we’re not afraid. We both felt His presence through our early years in classical ballet, and now we’re feeling it in a show that calls for a broad set of new talents. So we don’t doubt for a moment that God will show us exactly where we need to be, and what we need to do.”

“What we do know,” adds Easton, “is that we’d like to be able to touch people’s lives by expressing God in whatever way He wants us to. It might be on stage. Maybe in church work. But whatever it is, we know it’ll be good.”

Interview with Haley Henderson-Smith and Easton Smith by Kim Shippey
From the June 8, 2009 Christian Science Sentinel
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