In 2020, choreographer and performer Andrea Parson learned her 31-year-old sister, Christina, had been diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer. COVID had just begun upending life as we knew it, but for Parson, it turned out to be something of a blessing. The NW Dance Project she had been with for 12 years closed, giving the lifelong dancer “six amazing, beautiful months” with her younger sister. Although Christina’s diagnosis was dire, Parson recalls, “I didn’t think she was going to die. I really didn’t. I didn’t see that as a possibility.”

But in August 2020, Christina, mother of two, did die, and Parson began trying to process the loss the one way she knew — to make something. “I was like, I need to do something; I need to make something. I need to tell this story. It felt important, not just for me, but for my community and my family, just to have some kind of a container for this loss.”

That story evolved into You Can’t Be Serious, a performance of dance and storytelling exploring Parson’s loss. It premiered in November 2023 at BodyVox Dance Center in Portland. She has since performed it in Ashland, Los Angeles, New York City, and at Portland’s Open Space studio theater. In New York, it was part of the “largest curated festival of solo work in the world, United Solo,” according to a press release, and received an award for Best Physical Theater — a performance genre in which the story is conveyed largely through movement. On May 2 and 3, Parson will bring You Can’t be Serious to Astoria’s Ten Fifteen Productions.

Oregon ArtsWatch talked with Parson about the production and the loss that inspired it. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Can you talk about how you used art to cope with your mourning?

Parson: I was writing a lot during the time she was sick, not intending to make anything, but it was just my way of processing the unknown. My artistic practice as a mover and a writer, it’s my anchor point. It’s just been an anchor for me whatever is happening in the world.

How did you take that practice beyond personal grieving?

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In 2021, I saw this residency, From the Ground UP, which is a Portland-based nonprofit that supports female-identifying voices and specifically focuses on autobiographical work. So, I thought maybe this would be a good container for me to develop the story that I knew I wanted to tell, but also to be in community in some way. You know, even though solo work is such a solo act, I thought it would be nice to be in community with other solo artists who are also making something and to be held with this difficult subject matter that I was reading.  It was a year-long residency, and it ended with a 30-minute work-in-progress showing. In 2022, I did the first showing of this piece. It combined writing, movement, and a bit of audience interaction. I started to invite a little conversation with the audience, and it was wonderful. It felt really good to share and to be received by so many. It opened up these doors.

How has it evolved from the 30-minute work in progress?

It’s about an hour, 50 to 70 minutes, now. After I did the 30-minute showing, I knew I wanted to show it outside of Portland. I wanted to tour it, particularly in Oregon. I wanted to stay close to my community, but I was also having these bigger dreams of solo shows….  The solo show is really well known and popular in Great Britain and Scotland, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is a huge home and house for solo, autobiographical storytelling. I always had that dream to — or possibility of — sharing a work on that scale. Someone said, “Well, if you want to go to Edinburgh, you should find local fringes and do your show there.” … So, my director, Katherine Murphy Lewis, and I worked together to organize a tour. I did the full premiere in Portland in 2023 at BodyVox Dance Center and that was the launching point.  

What has the audience reaction been like?

It’s been really like people’s hearts feel open. It elicits tears and laughter, both, actually. I use comedy a lot as an anchor point and as a tool to go to these depths, these dark waters within the piece. The piece ebbs and flows between moments of laughter and of darker, deeper grief moments, and the audience has come on that ride with me. I feel like they’re in it for the laughter, and then they’re shedding tears.  One of the things I found most touching is when people have said, “I just went and called my sister and told her I loved her.”

Are there moments on stage that have surprised you?

What’s been surprising always, especially in the humorous moments, is what the audience thinks is funny and where they laugh. It’s different every show, but they’ll delight in something, and that will surprise me. In that moment where I ask the audience, “Are you afraid of death?,” it always does get quite serious. It’s a little silly, a little funny, because it’s a big question. It’s a little bit of an opportunity to play with them. I feel like it does make people quite serious, and that’s kind of a challenge.

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Do you ever have a hard time keeping your own emotions in check?

Grief, as you probably know, comes in waves, and in the process of making the show and rehearsal and performance, I don’t feel my emotions really overpowering me. My mind is in this show.  But it’s only when I have some space and I’m looking back at the work, I feel way more emotional than I do when I’m in it.

Where does the title come from?

It’s basically an expression of my reaction to this experience, which was like, you can’t be serious. Like, in a serious way, you can’t be serious that this is happening. And then the flip side of it, which is you literally just can’t be serious, you have to have fun, you have to laugh. You can’t take life so seriously, it’s absurd. You know, there are some things that are so funny, and that title allows me to hold both of those things.