I've done a few more improvs, but the videos are on my phone and until someone teaches me how to not be a technological disgrace to my generation, I suppose on my phone is exactly where those videos will stay. I can tell you that they are the product of mixed emotions. I went to an audition in NYC for a GIGANTIC company, and as expected didn't receive a callback. What was unexpected was being ruled out within the first glimpse the director took of me. I was still allowed to dance, but after that initial line up of all 30 of us in the room, he was no longer interested in what I had to offer. That was slightly disheartening. Granted, he saw over 250 dancers that day and was hiring only one. Looking for the positives, I realized that I'd been given and taken the opportunity to dance in front of a legend, and that is pretty awesome. I really can't ask for more and I am so proud of myself for walking into a situation that I knew I had no chance of success in, but doing it anyway just to show myself I could. So mixed up somewhere between distraught and thrilled, I went home and kicked my own butt in the studio. Maybe one day you'll get to see what came of it.
The day after that, I decided to crack down on getting this thing together. So, I took the first improv I'd done and picked out moments I really liked. I then re-taught them to myself and strung it together into one long, extremely dense phrase. I was amazed when I finished and had 3 minutes of material in my hands - 3 minutes that needed to be teased out and slowed down - 3 minutes that would probably become at least 4 and 1/2 minutes - 3 minutes that I actually liked. I am so excited, and again, the video's on my phone. I promise to charge my camera tomorrow so that when I have space at Chi MAC tomorrow night, I can use it appropriately and share what I'm doing.
In conversing with my mentor via email, she raised an extremely interesting question that I feel is necessary to address, if only on a personal level. She asked, "Did the movement itself contribute to a change in emotion or was the emotion just spending itself, playing itself out? The very repetition seemed to spark both creativity and change." I think the last statement is probably most accurate. At first, the movement was 100% created out of me just letting go and allowing whatever I was feeling to take over, but I also feel as though it was a personal conversation with myself. By the end, I had reached a new level. I had talked myself into feeling something slightly different or at least thinking about what I was feeling in a different way. I had discovered things about myself in that moment that would have otherwise remained a mystery. Those closest to me have always said dance was my therapy and my only real way of communicating, and I feel as though this process is only emphasizing that.
In the end, here is my living, breathing, moving journal - my most intimate thoughts. Those thoughts that I would never, not in a million years, be able to find the words for. I can most certainly show you though. Even just standing still, my body has the ability to broadcast everything going on internally. That is the most thrilling part of this gifted life I have been given.
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