Here, have a part of my soul: Separating Life and Work

It's not late, not by most college student standards. For me, a bit. The later it gets, the shorter the time between now and when my alarm goes off.

Normally I'd be in bed. But I'm not. I'm here, writing this, carefully breaking off chunks of a chocolate fudge poptart and letting the knot of anxiety in my stomach loosen.

The piece I'm choreographing for my senior creative thesis -- which will also be performed in Paris as part of a larger festival of contemporary dance -- is the first time I have deliberately and intentionally crafted a piece, with narrative and spacing. Essentially, everything I've been learning, as a dancer, in choreography classes. As such, it's a first try, but I want -- as with any artist -- my craft to be complete now, so I can make the best choreography anyone has ever seen now.

First of all: That's ridiculous. My mom often quotes a zen saying, that you can become a master in 20 years, and if you try very hard, 30 years. In other words, it takes time, and you can't rush it. You have to be a novice for awhile. And trust me -- in an artistic world where validation is the law, that's tough. 


The piece in question was not meant to be autobiographical. In fact, I'd like to say it's not. But today when the female dancer -- there are three in total, two male -- hurt her ankle, I danced the part and fell into like breathing. Oh crap -- a lot of me wound up in it.

I promise I'm going somewhere with this.

Today I had two visitors in rehearsal, people I very much respect and trust. And I was terrified. That's where the knot in my stomach came from. You know how it feels. That same, clinging feeling of needing validation, of wanting and hoping desperately that these people you like will like the piece, because their opinion very much matters. 


Here. Have a part of my soul. Doesn't it feel like that? Creation, we think, is from us, from our souls, and my god, showing that is terrifying. The most you part of you, the thing that beats and loves and makes everything you are? And then you have to show it, and let it be judged?

Good lord, it's a wonder there even are artists.

But I realize that there's a trap there. Oh god is there a trap. Does creation come from us? Or the genii -- the daemons, the little spirtis -- in the corners, to use a metaphor from Elizabeth Gilbert? This piece was given to me. By who, I don't know and I'm not going to get into a discussion of the 'higher power'; I'm an atheist and it's not a religious blog, anyway. But Inspiration -- to be inspired -- is a funny thing, and happens in the blink of an eye. I'd like to think it's the daemons.

What are the implications of the artist not being the one who tries and in trying, creates?

Freedom.

You aren't responsible anymore, except to the spark of inspiration itself. The piece was given to me because my experiences allowed me to craft in such a way that it expressed the essence of the piece. Then all I can do is work to get it as close as I possibly can to that essence -- the thing that first inspired me to move in this or that way, to structure movement like this, or that. But then it is not mine, not mine to be judged, not my soul to be tossed from dirty paw to dirty paw like a precious gem.

The artist and his work have been inseparable since the 18th century at least, perhaps before. The artist has also become more and more self-destructive, and melancholy, and alone. No. Let's not fall into the trap. The artist's life is important in that it gives him the ideas and the possibilities to realize the work, but in entwining the two together, art becomes too personal.

It's why I can't dance the part, and why I don't want to. I may physically and emotionally be able to, but it hopelessly confuses what is me and what is the movement. The movement is mine because I channeled the idea, but it is not me. And nor should it be.