What does love mean to you? Daniel Cooksley and Elaine “Lanie” Hoxie want to know
OK, you don’t have to tell the couple personally. But they hope their multimedia show “Live All in Love” will inspire audience members to ponder the question.
Love is very much on the performers’ minds because, well, they are in love.
Not the infatuation of first love or the wild ride of alcohol-fueled-desire love. No, this is an adult kind of love. And as it happened, it started in 2020 at the storied beer tent at the Orlando Fringe Festival.
Wait: The love story of Cooksley and Hoxie actually started years earlier. Both are veterans of the Orlando arts scene.
Cooksley is known as a powerful actor, working with Theatre Downtown (“Killer Joe”), Kangagirl Productions (“Little Dog Laughed”) and Greater Orlando Actors Theatre (“A Streetcar Named Desire”), among others.
Hoxie teaches dance for Orlando Ballet, the Harwood-Watson Dance Studios and others. She also performs burlesque with the Big Bang Boom Cabaret-Foxy’s Den-Midnight Fables Cabaret collective.
The two met 15 years ago this month at the Mandell Theater in the Lowndes Shakespeare Center, Hoxie recalls. Cooksley was winning rave reviews for his performance in Empty Spaces Theatre Co.’s “Bent.” Hoxie, who danced with the Drip troupe, was performing in the preshow.
Life’s twists and turns ensued, they traveled their own paths, and they met again about four years ago performing with the Phantasmagoria steampunk storytellers.
This time, they formed “a memorable friendship,” Cooksley says, calling them “ride-share buddies.”
“He’d drive my car while I put on my makeup,” Hoxie says.
But things took a romantic turn at the 2020 Fringe on the lawn of Loch Haven Park. Hoxie made the first move: “Do you want to make out?” she remembers asking.
“I was like, ‘Lanie!'” Cooksley says. But his heart was ready.
“He grabbed me and kissed me, and then we weren’t just friends anymore,” Hoxie says as Cooksley beams at her.
Both had recently come out of “tumultuous” relationships, says Cooksley, 50, and were hesitant to take the plunge.
“We kind of had to trust in the universe,” he says.
But it worked, and the two discovered a mature kind of love.
“I don’t think I’ve really accepted love before,” says Hoxie, 41.
Cooksley’s photography business sparked the idea for “Live All the Love,” their first collaborative venture. He took an art photo of Hoxie with dead flowers attached to her body by bandages, symbolizing the hurt that can be caused by love.
“I said, ‘I’m going to bring that to life through dance,'” Hoxie says.
“Live All the Love” mixes music, video, spoken word and movement to explore the emotion in its various facets. Cooksley serves as narrator for the multimedia journey; Hoxie choreographed the show. The two are joined by dancer Kim Matovina and actor-dancer Carlos Dimas, who will read a poem about love in his native Spanish.
“You don’t need to know those words,” Hoxie says. “You can feel the love and passion come from him.”
Cooksley created the video projections, which interact with the performers and mesh with the music.
In working together, the two have learned they have different creative processes — she’s a planner, he likes to feel things out. “Not a Virgo at all,” Hoxie teases him. But they can recall only one tiff — a minor squabble over how many posters to print.
“We’re still madly in love with each other after doing all this,” Hoxie says.
They can’t wait to debut the work, which they stress isn’t their story — but rather everybody’s story.
“We’re not claiming we’re experts or life coaches or gurus,” Cooksley says with a chuckle. “But if you have feelings, if you have a heart, you’re going to get something out of this.”
Hoxie looks at him and smiles: “Love is universal.”
‘Live All in Love’
When: 7:30 p.m. Aug. 20; 2 and 5 p.m. Aug. 21; 5 and 7:30 p.m. Aug. 27
Where: ME Theatre, 1300 La Quinta Drive in Orlando
Cost: $25-$35
Info: instagram.com/liveallinlove or bigbangboomcollective.com/tickets
Find me on Twitter @matt_on_arts, facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Want more theater and arts news and reviews? Go to orlandosentinel.com/arts. For more fun things, follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
