Rockford twins’ new dance performance tells story of anguish, healing after life-saving transplant

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Meghan Baylor was laying on her hospital bed after a life-saving bone marrow transplant when she and her twin sister, Caitlyn Baylor, mapped out the first movements for a performance now set to take place nearly two years later.

That first bit of choreography contains some of the simplest gestures, a methodical mirroring exercise, of the 45-minute original dance routine. But they’re also among the most powerful in the performance, signifying the sisters first attempt to reconnect as dance partners while still playing the roles of patient and caregiver.

“That was the way that we kept a thread of dance even when I couldn’t really stand and was really at the rock bottom,” Meghan Baylor said.

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“All Will Come Again” is the end result of that early hospital-room choreography. The ballet-influenced modern dance routine tells the story of Meghan Baylor’s life-threatening diagnosis of aplastic anemia and how the twins confronted the anguish of the blood disorder and the beauty of the healing process.

The one-night only performance happens at 7 p.m. Saturday at Rockford Theatre, 323 Park Ave., an 800-seat historic downtown theater built starting in 1916, predating the Coronado Performing Arts Center by about a decade.

“You can see the way that we developed it around a very specific and personal story,” Meghan Baylor said. “In many ways we felt like we didn’t have the language to tell people what we had gone through, aside from dance. We felt like we could try to bring people into our world and our journey in this way.”

The mirroring movements were created while Meghan Baylor was amid her five-week hospital stay starting in early August 2022. Caitlyn Baylor was by her side as often is possible, working as Meghan’s designated caregiver throughout the grueling transplant healing process.

“The mirroring section is something that we started doing in the hospital when we would say, ‘we should dance today,’ but that was the extent of what dance could be at that time,” Caitlyn Baylor said. “For me, it’s the most intense section of the evening, even though it’s physically the least intense section.”

The title of the show is derived from a poem by Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote “All will come again into its strength.”

The sisters have danced together for their entire lives, starting at Rockford Dance Co. when they were toddlers. They continued to dance as part of the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) program at Auburn High School, which they graduated from in 2008, and at Grinnell College.

Caitlyn now handles grantwriting and special initiatives for Rockford Area Habitat for Humanity, and Meghan teaches French at Boylan Catholic High School.

They started choreographing their own shows after graduating from Grinnell and returning to Rockford. Often they were site-specific dances, such as a routine blending movements into water in the Kishwaukee River. That show, filmed in September 2021, was a critical moment for the sisters and one that opens their new show.

“The next day Meghan was covered in bruises,” Caitlyn Baylor said. “We both think of that day in the Kishwaukee as this real turning point. It feels like the last healthy day.”

That bruising led to the discovery of aplastic anemia and the need for a donor to replace unhealthy bone marrow with healthy blood-forming cells.

Caitlyn is a genetic match for her twin, but because they share the same genetics that are the nature of Meghan’s blood disorder doctors decided it was best to find an unrelated donor from the National Marrow Donor Program.

“That was really difficult for me to not be able to be a donor. That really registered as a failure for me,” Caitlyn Baylor said. “Objectively, I could recognize it was the right thing medically … but it was so hard to accept that.”

The sisters tell their story on stage with five additional dancers — Kate Blair, Nicole Rundall Royal, Myca Cumpston, Gretchen Stark and Michelle Stolberg — with music by Jóhann Jóhannsson, and lighting and tech from Bill Houtkamp and Andrew Ehrhardt.

The story is personal for the sisters, but it’s also an experience they think others can see themselves in as a mirror to their own stories of healing or grief.

“It’s a journey that so many people have been on; it’s an arc that is very relatable,” Meghan Baylor said. “Life’s going along, then you hit a brick wall, you go through this deep, dark struggle and if you’re fortunate you’re able to tell that story of starting to come out the other side.”

The routine’s execution is dependent on meticulous timing, with many of the dancers movements synchronized.

“We do really have that twin advantage of being super synchronized in our movement,” Caitlyn Baylor said. “I don’t think it would be as synchronized if we were just counting music, I think that comes from being twins.”

Doctors told Meghan Baylor after the transplant that there was still significant risk. There is a roughly three-in-four chance to live past the one year mark. The sisters said facing the potentially terminal illness together filled them with fear and uncertainty, but with the dance they can relive that experience while knowing the outcome in the end.

“The anguish of every waking second was all-consuming. It was an indescribable time in my life,” Caitlyn Baylor said. “The movements are so anguished, so in a way you’re reliving it by going there, but I also think it’s cathartic to bring it into your body. Making this dance has been such a big part of healing for both of us. ”

If you go | “All Will Come Again”

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, May 11

Where: Rockford Theatre at Rockford Woman’s Club, 323 Park Ave., Rockford

Cost: $10-$15

Tickets: Go HERE

Dancers: Caitlyn Baylor, Meghan Baylor, Kate Blair, Myca Cumpston, Nicole Rundall Royal, Gretchen Stark, Michelle Stolberg

Sound design and choreography: Caitlyn Baylor and Meghan Baylor

Music: Jóhann Jóhannsson

Lighting and tech: Bill Houtkamp

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This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas