Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater

So right off the bat, I have a confession to make. I cheated. I wrote a blog, put it up here and took it down before anyone could see it, keeping no traceable evidence that it ever even existed. I guess I knew cheating would at one point be inevitable, but I was so proud of myself for not having done it, and so upset that I caved. Since taking it down, I have attempted to rewrite the post 5 times with no success. Between being afraid, living in two places at one time that are nowhere near each other, and having internet in neither of those places, getting it done has been a challenge. I finally forced myself to write it all down in my journal for this piece, under the assumption that I would freely write knowing it was meant for no one's eyes, and it worked...but I don't have my journal with me today and honestly, I probably would have edited that entry as I typed it into the computer.

It's the strangest thing too. What I wrote was good, but it made me so uncomfortable, much more so than anything I'd written before. I think it was the prospect that what had happened hadn't actually happened or hadn't honestly happened. I didn't want someone to see it and have the satisfaction of knowing they'd gotten to me, or worse someone else to see it and think less of me...but the point is someone got through to me, whether or not it was real. Even if I made it up in my own head with fictional friends and one huge conversation with myself, I still felt something. That's all that really matters. Who cares what you think? But then, she said something at work that day, and my defense shattered. I went on my phone and deleted it without even blinking.

I do remember the title of the entry. I was extremely proud of it. It was called "Long walks, dirty sombreros and a rose."

And now, enough beating around the bush, here's what's been going on.

Nearly a week ago a friend visited, surprising all of us. It was a wonderful two days. I forgot responsibilities (not all of them, just the kind that I would create for myself instead of allowing time to hang out with friends, or sit on the couch, or go to sit in the park and actually end up walking all over the world) and was just a person again. It brought me to the wonderfully awful realization that I have forgotten what it means to be a human being who interacts with other human beings in a way that has nothing to do with dance or work. There is actually something else to this world. One extremely intoxicated night later, I found myself in ballet the next morning, sluggish and slightly irritated that I'd allowed myself to be so irresponsible and sacrifice feeling well for class, but at the same time, renewed. Memories of the previous few hours continued to seep through my brick wall, and I was smiling and happy despite how much I was pretty sure I just wanted to throw up.

A few hours later, the text to come people watch threw away any and all attempts I'd made at convincing myself I had imagined everything. Then the awful anticipation sitting in the park, waiting for my companion to join...and then the calm once he did. The ease and flow of conversation, no matter the subject. I found myself opening up and saying all kinds of things that in retrospect I realize I never would have said were I my normal, stoic self. The sight of a rose. The giggles at a dirty sombrero. Being upset to say goodbye? What is that?

The feeling remained with me for a solid few days. It was amazing. I have not felt like that in over a year, and I knew that if any one thing could bring me back fully, it would be this. And now? No answers. No laughs. No smiles...although it did bring me to tears in rehearsal today. I feel foolish again, which is an all too familiar thing for me. I cannot tell you how much I don't want to talk about it...but I have to because I promised I would, for the sake of this piece.

So, for now, the wall is back up. A little more chinked this time though. Ready to fall down, and that is such a good thing.

A friendly reminder that this isn't easy.

After posting that yesterday, I went to work and just thought about it some more. I wanted to come home and take it down. I couldn't believe I'd written it and shared all of that. I felt foolish and far too exposed.

This is without a doubt the most interesting and intense journey I have ever forced myself to embark on. I'm getting somewhere though. Baby steps.

Oh and P.S. - I've decided to withhold the developing phrase from you all. I'm at the point now where what I'm doing is what will become the final version of my portion of the dance. So the next videos to be posted may be random improvs I do just for the heck of it or maybe the beginnings of my dancers' phrases. We shall see. But, and I am sorry for it, you will not see my material again until it is performed live, in the public. I want something to be a surprise =)

"We're all going to die. You might as well dance a little on the way."

A week in New York, a week of daily bus rides, noisy children, angry men and snoring women, a week of hard dancing and quiet awe from being in the same room as the great ones, a week of soaking up every word that poured out of their mouths and being saddened by those that seeped out of memory, a week of escaping reality and I am back.

I'm not sure where to begin. I have no updated dancing to share with you, but the experiences and thought I've put in is overwhelming and kind of all over the place. Maybe I'll start with the book I read. My teacher, mentor, Temple-mommy and best friend gave me "Tuesdays with Morrie" to read. I'd obviously heard of it before and had actually tried reading it once but a friend destroyed the cover, and I have trouble reading damaged books. In the book, on the 6th Tuesday, they talk about emotions. I found Morrie's philosophy so interesting. Instead of ever shying away from an emotion, he fully immerses himself in whatever he's feeling so he can experience it to its most extreme degree. He is then able to recognize that emotion for what it is, saying, "Okay, this is fear," and can let it go - detach himself from it. His idea is that if you stifle emotions, if you don't allow yourself to cry, if you don't allow yourself to laugh or hide in a corner for a few minutes, then you'll never actually know what it's like to feel these things. So by all means, go nuts for a few minutes, then step back and realize what's happening and step away from it.

I also loved the chapter on forgiveness. Well, let's be honest, I loved all the chapters, but this quote in particular stuck with me, "We also need to forgive ourselves...For all the things we didn't do. For all the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. That doesn't help you..." I can't directly tie it to emotions and give you some kind of mathematical equation on how it all relates, but I know in my heart that what that says is so essential to what I'm doing.

While in New York, over lunch one day we discussed injuries, how to prevent them and the reality of dealing with them. Obviously, the mental and emotional aspect of injuries sometimes overpowers the injury itself. In particular, the back was brought up. Apparently, and I'm going to try to look this up, the back is known as a catalyst for emotional response. Whether you're injured there or just in a backbend, it can open you up and make you sob, or very angry. They were talking about the nerves in the back and the neurological connections, but none of us were doctors or physical therapists or anything of the sort. Just a bunch of dancers talking suppositions. However, it made so much sense to me. My back is probably my most messed up physical feature. Throw in some scoliosis, a complex spine (lumbar lordosis), bone degeneration and dislocating shoulder blades and you have the making for your very own girl version of Quasimodo, who ironically is trying to make a living as a dancer. It's been a common theme for conversation ever since high school when they started telling me I looked like the girl from "The Ring." At that time, I only knew about the scoliosis. Then I got to college and got walloped. In my freshman year of school, after just discovering my complex spine and dislocating shoulder, I started to recognize how emotional I would get when someone merely touched my back. It was like a switch. Touch my back and I'm ready to cry. Backbends don't really do it to me. The one positive side to all of these ailments is my back has grown extremely flexible, and everyone seems to realize that, consciously or not, because I do backbends in every single dance I'm in (as can be evidenced by my Facebook. Go ahead and look through my dance pictures. I promise Bill catches me in a backbend every single time). It's also been brought to my attention that I tend to lead into things with my back when dancing for myself. My back initiates everything, which I am completely and totally unaware of as a dancer. It's like I've shut that part of my body off. I don't want to deal with how messed up it is so I don't feel it, kind of like my emotions, but it is constantly screaming for attention. I think all of this combined means that I need to pay attention to it. There needs to be a section that deals with my back in the dance and I need to know exactly what I'm doing and pay attention to it. This part might not come out of improv. This may be a true-blue choreographed little-diddy where I have to force myself to realize what's going on. That's going to be fun...

My last big lesson to share for today...I think. A few months ago, an old, close friend from high school, probably the closest I'd ever had, who I'd had an intense falling out with, reached out to me. It was terrifying and in my head was completely the wrong time. Looking back though, I think maybe it was perfect timing. It took me from September until last week to really warm up to him and want to tell him about my life again, but I think I needed to go through that process. I thought about it every few days, wondering why I was hiding, why I was so reserved. And then I started this project and realized that if I was going to sit here on my couch and tell you all that I was on a mission to be more open and honest, that I needed to start living that. So I told him that I was ready to tell him what had happened, despite how sad my stories were, despite my fear of his disapproval, despite the daunting fact that I knew somehow he was going to make me realize that it was okay, I was okay, and that at the core, none of it was really my fault. So, we talked. I told him everything, or everything I could remember. We got it all out of the way, my sob stories, why I had trouble talking to people, his apologies and the overwhelming blame he put on himself, and then we just talked, for hours, about everything and anything. I have not given any one person, outside of family, so much of my time and attention in so very long, and I did it so freely, so willingly. I would chalk it up to being stuck on a bus for hours with nothing better to do, but then the strangest thing happened. I called him back when I got home. I actually wanted to. And we talked more. I didn't have to think about what I was saying, or contemplate what affect it might have on what he would say next. It didn't matter. I could just talk, and laugh. I haven't laughed like that in a year at least. He brought back, the version of me I've been searching for. She never left, which is so comforting and so fulfilling. I was here, just hiding, just protecting myself. He said that in our initial conversations he could feel that and it scared him. He was scared I'd been lost. When I explained what I thought was happening to him, he said it made a lot of sense - that he could see me doing that. The girl he knew/knows is extremely open, and giving and susceptible to a lot of pain because of it, putting herself on the line and being hurt by many for doing so. I think that's what happened. I got hurt, for what I decided was the last time and I retracted. But I can't live like that, it isn't who I am. I'm not saying I was some mental patient and now I'm cured, Hallelujah! I'm not saying I was a mental patient at all, and I'm not saying I'm cured at all, but in the last few days, I feel back. For whatever reason, the way this summer has been going, the New York trip, talking to him, reading that book, I'm not sure...but it's nice.

So thank you, everyone. I've come to realize I need you. I can't do this whole life thing on my own the way I thought I could. I'm glad I have been fortunate enough to cross paths with such amazing people.

Warning: I can promise my next post will be stressed. This upcoming week looks like it may be a little rough. Fasten your seat belts everyone.

With your permission

I couldn't stand to see you in pain and I think you knew that. I think that you got good at being strong for me. I'm telling you, be hurt. I can take it. The world can take it. -No Strings Attached

http://www.youtube.com/user/csqt10?feature=mhee

Warning: Anything you say or do can be used...

The right arm thing interests me. I also want to know what your heart is gravitating toward in all this not only in respect to love but what do you hope to gain in the end? What do you want for yourself? Also in a selfish respect I want to know what effect if any I have had on this. But mostly I think its good you're trying not to close yourself off.

In the end I don't want to be what I am right now I want to trust people and myself. I don't want to feel like I have to be strong all the time. You helped me realize how far I'd gone, but also that it's something no one but I can figure out for myself. I also am really interested in how the process and piece are perceived by an audience.

As cheesy as it sounds follow your heart I think...if I have anything to offer you it's that you should let yourself be impulsive. Do something insane...not because it makes sense but because why...not? We are young and before we know it we won't have the chance to be young and stupid anymore...Disagree with me if you must but your life is what you make it. Yes there are outside factors but in the end it's you...I tell you this for your sake because I don't ever want you to regret anything. There is always time for doing what you know in your heart is what you want right now, whatever that may be. Take a chance.

The simple beauty in what you said still has me speechless. This conversation alone makes this journey 100% worth it. Someone out there is coming along with me for the ride, and although I would be perfectly content if you were the only one, you aren't. I've had a handful of similar conversations, with people I would never have expected, concerning this project. Non-artists and artists alike, all of whom are genuinely intrigued by what I'm attempting. This one in particular just really struck me. It is exactly what I need to hear, both personally and professionally, inside and outside of this piece.

I want you to know that I've been thinking about it...what does take a chance mean for me? The first chance that came to mind is something my available time and ability to pursue has long since past, and I deeply regret it. I've been left with the "what if" factor, and although I am positively certain beyond a doubt that nothing good could have come of me taking that chance - that me and those close to me would have been very disappointed in my lack of self-respect - I am still left with loose ends and unanswered questions that will seemingly linger for quite some time.

So again, take a chance? I'll have to get back to you on that one...

Critical Thinking

Can I just throw it out there that sometimes taking a walk in solitude during a sunset with a cool breeze to embrace you is sometimes the only thing that can throw you back into reality. It made me calm down, forget the noise of life, especially that noise which is continually flooding my head, and listen to the world. It reminded me of my place in both space in time. Every child's laugh, every bird that flew by, even those decaying factories in the background brought me to a state of inner peace that I haven't known in I can't even tell you how long. I heard the universe telling me to relax because I am going to be okay and I am exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing. I think I'll probably try to make a routine of it.

And also, maybe I shouldn't be so comfortable as to treat walking in Philadelphia alone as if I was walking in my own backyard...but maybe I'll just never report to home about where this walk took place...

Once again, mentor to the rescue! I received such a wonderful email this morning and again, I think it's something I need to talk back to and figure out. Her questions were:

Is your research question essentially a question about the emotions themselves, e.g. as a source of knowledge in our lives, or about the process of creating dance that emerges out of them?

To this, I'm not sure. I think it is essentially a question about the emotions themselves. As I continue along my journey, I've realized something alarming about myself. I am one of those thousands that is under this spell of societal numbness, as I discussed in my earlier blog entry. I have transformed from the gentle, romantic child I once was to this hard, stoic thing that I am. My question is why? And how do we fix this problem? How can I reach inside of myself to let myself feel? A big part of my ability to do this rests in my faith in others not to make me feel ashamed of being emotional and feeling whatever it is I feel. I need to know that no one will think I'm being a "foolish little girl" if I have trouble dealing with something. I need to know that it's okay to be anything other than solid.

And how does someone struggling with this issue reach out to a nation struggling? How can I move an audience who has been trained to be "happy" or "solid" to feel what I'm feeling? Will they accept that? And what happens when I don't express the emotion they're anticipating even if it's what I'm feeling? Can that be okay?

1. How can I come to know myself through the emotions, as I allow them to fully surface in my consciousness and become a source for my imagination?

Entering this process has already allowed me to know myself better. I have learned what triggers my emotions. I have figured out that I am not nearly moved as easily as I once was in a general sense; it takes extremely specific situations to extract a legitimate emotional response from me. I realize this is in response to my past and it is a defense mechanism. I know that somewhere along the line I convinced myself that even if I could never be what someone told me I needed to be for them, I could at the very least be strong, and if I was strong what they were saying couldn't hurt me. Choosing to be strong has dulled me both from good and bad.

I also recognized earlier in this year that when I was dancing, things would surface that I was either unaware of or trying to hide. For me, dance is a method of communication with myself and the world. If I can hope to be honest about what I'm thinking and feeling, even if it is contrary to societal expectations, that hope rests in dance.

2. How can improvisation as experiential inquiry make me more aware of my emotions and help me to process them?

The point of improvisation is honesty. With improvisation I cannot predict what I am going to do (if I am doing it correctly). In what I've been doing, I have been focusing on whatever I'm thinking and feeling and allowing it to truly manifest throughout my body. In that first improv posted on here, although you can't tell on the video, I was sobbing. In each session, I took everything I had and poured it into the space. So, this everything being channelled through my body in an honest way tells a lot. Am I choosing to throw myself? Am I touching myself quite a bit? Am I wandering? Does it appear that I know where I'm going? Is my body loose or controlled? Each one suggests a different emotional state. If I'm throwing myself, chances are I'm frustrated and/or angry with no other outlet. If I'm touching myself, I need to be made aware that I'm still here, in this world, or that I need comfort. If I'm wandering, I don't know what's next which suggests confusion...etc. There are also the memory stains that bleed out through my body, such as the right arm. That has no universal psychology behind it, but for me, a right arm is extremely telling. That is one of the most vulnerable parts I have, but it leads me into most of the movement in a few of the videos.

Watching myself process through movement points things out to me that I may not have realized otherwise.

3. What is the process by which I draw upon emotional states and changes to create choreography?

This question was actually brought up in the latest Diamond Scholars Luncheon as well. So, here we go, choreographic process. After reviewing the improv tapes, I pick out moments of significance where I feel as though I was really getting somewhere emotionally - ie. I feel as though I was truly immersed in what I was feeling or I was talking myself into a new level. I then recreate these moments. At first, I picked out about 35 moments (from only the first 2 improvs) and attempted to string them together in some kind of way that made sense to me. Then I tweaked this dance over and over, but with little to no improvement on my level of satisfaction with it. So, I kept improvising, and continued to remind myself of the process. This piece isn't about aesthetics (woa weird for me), it's about honesty and what feels right. The problem was it didn't look good and I couldn't justify that because it didn't feel right.

I then thought about the improv that I was most invested in, that I felt most true in. I took the basic movement motif in that and translated it into the main motif for the phrase. I also took basic concepts and pieces of movement from the first "dance" and rearranged them, integrating the motif whenever possible. And finally, something felt right.

I've also realized, begrudgingly, that emotions are completely dependent upon our relationships with other people in our lives. I can sit here and be as self-centered as I want and pretend that this piece is all about me, but that wouldn't be true. This piece is about me in relation to the world. I'm excited about being invited to hang out in a bar with my closest friend and her husband. I'm miserable because some jerk took my heart and ran. I'm nostalgic because I want to be home to see my little brother learn how to ride a bike while my little sister takes the wheel of my car. But all of these feelings are dependent upon the people who are in my life and mean something to me, even if it's only a momentary meeting. Holding on to this obvious, yet hard to come by information, I've decided to involve more people in the piece, which is comforting and I'm very excited about.

And lastly, although not a question asked by Joellen, why on earth did I start this blog? No, it wasn't to torture you with immense amounts of text on a page posted late each night. I've continually said that this piece is equally, if not perhaps more about the process than the product. That being said, it makes no sense for me to shut my audience out of what I'm doing. This is about me figuring out who I am, what I am and what I'm doing about and with that information. It's about me possibly causing you to realize something. It's about me asking you to accept whatever I say and understand that I'm only human, just like you. This is normal.

Please, if you made it this far, watch this video. I'm happy with what I came up with (aside from the occasional stumble). I'm moving forward with this, starting tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eh3YwPGHe4

Can you see my research coming through? I can =)

I've been doing a lot of reading...

Research Findings:

Definitions

Emotion: a relatively brief episode of coordinated brain, autonomic and behavioral changes that facilitate a response to an external or internal event of significance for the organism.

Feelings: the subjective representation of emotions. (Emotion Science)

Repression: the dissociation of a memory and/or feeling from consciousness...repressed material may often be expressed indirectly in nonverbal behavior.

Self-deception: a state in which certain beliefs and feelings are not subject to awareness (The Communication of Emotion).

Stoics: Those who believe that emotions can cognitively be cured because they are something you must give assent to (Philosophical Psychology)

James-Lange Theory: somatic and visceral changes occur when an emotional stiumulus is perceived and that 'our feeling of these same changes as they occur is the emotion.' We do not cry because we feel sorry; we feel sorry because we cry. (The Communication of Emotion)

Points of Personal Interest

What we notice and remember is not the mundane but events that evoke feelings of joy, sorrow, pleasure and pain.

Descartes suggested 6 basic emotions - love, hatred, desire. joy, sadness and admiration

Ancient Greeks suggested 5 basic/discrete emotions - happiness, fear, anger, disgust and sadness (Emotion Science)

Stoics suggested 4 basic emotions - appetite, fear, pleasure and distress

Stoic perspective - crying doesn't mean you've been maltreated. Crying means you're crying.

Stoic techniques for "dealing" with and controlling emotions:

Show that you are not the only one dealing with something similar to what you're dealing with

Relabel things - Traffic becomes a festival. Fat becomes beautifully rounded. Relabeling can go either way depending on desired result.

We Stoics have got it all wrong. We are too intellectual. If we are to understand the emotions, we have got to remember Plato telling us that there's not just a rational part of our soul; there are also emotional parts of the soul, one to do with domination, aggression, indignation, and so on...By all means, educate people to make correct judgements educate their reason, but that on its own is not going to cure their emotions (Philosophical Psychology)

Brain stimulation can cause emotion out of the blue. Case of a man who killed his own wife, mother and 14 strangers because he had an unidentified brain tumor placing pressure on a certain area of his brain.

Muscle tension reveals emotion - forearm tension when discussing hostile content, leg tension when discussing sexual content.

He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips, betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.

Deception and leakage clues occur more in the body than on the face.

If...the expression of emotion is inhibited, others have difficulty in gauging the emotional state of the sender, and they thus cannot coordinate their own behavior appropriately, or give appropriate feedback (The Communication of Emotion).

Brain Stuff

Spontaneous facial expressiveness is greater in subjects who show evience of right-hemisphere dominance...there is evidence that right-hemisphere processing is involved in the recognition of emotion in others.

Those of a hysteric cognitive style (right-hemisphere) tend to look left when answering reflective question.

Someone verbally saying "I love you" will be processed differently by each hemisphere. The left will process the words while the right will process the body language and tone of voice.

Right hemisphere is fully expressed in daydreams and night dreams when the left hemisphere is relaxed and no longer censoring the right hemisphere's expression.

Damage to the left hemisphere appears to result in an increase of facial expression supporting the idea of the left hemisphere serving as a censor.

left hemisphere may block right hemisphere experiences from verbalizable experience. (The Communication of Emotions).

Survey of My personality findings

On a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being very reserved and 5 being very outgoing, where do you think I fit?

Majority said 3 - Somewhat reserved and somewhat outgoing and 4 - Mostly outgoing

On a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being less intelligent and 5 being more intelligent, where do you think I fit?

Majority said 5 - more intelligent

On a scale from 1 to 5, 1 be easily affected by feelings and 5 being emotionally stable, where do you think I fit?

Majority said 2 - sometimes easily affected

Same scale, 1 being Very Humble and 5 being Very Assertive, where am I?

Majority said 3 - sometimes humble and sometimes assertive

1 being very practical and 5 being imaginative.

Majority said 3 - sometimes practical and sometimes imaginative

1 being Very relaxed and 5 being Very tense, where do I fall?

Majority said 4 - somewhat tense

1 being Very Shy and 5 being Very Venturesome.

Majority said 4 - somewhat venturesome

1 being Very group-dependent and 5 being Very self-sufficient.

Majority said 4 - somewhat self-sufficient and 5 - very self-sufficient

1 being very trusting and 5 being very suspicious.

Majority said 1 - Very trusting

What I found most interesting, that you can't see here, is the inconsistency in the findings. There was no single answer in any of the categories that was overwhelmingly the most chosen. This suggests that several people perceive me differently...