Being Alive (Have you?)

On a number of programs and bios for various productions, I've started adding a silly little line, something I've been thinking about for several years. It's always among my life goals, and it's simple enough:

I would like to be the most alive person you've ever met.

What does that mean, anyway?

Honestly? I have no idea. I know what I think it means right now and what it used to mean, but it's a puzzle that I'm always chewing on in some shape or form. What does it mean, really, to be alive, and do you know anyone who has?

I know that I was alive in Paris. I think it's the closest I've ever been, at least. Thinking back, I remember so much of it being a haze, kind of like each moment was its own perfect eternity and I was perfectly inside each as it became the next. No brilliant flashes of light but light.

You know people who are alive. They sparkle, don't they? They explode outwards, they glow. They're stunning. I want to be them.

I was talking to a very good friend the other day, and she said that for me, it could be hard to do that, because I do too much. She said, hard to be alive when all you do is run around.

She knows me too well. It is indeed my challenge, and particularly epidemic to my life at Columbia. The energy here is do more, be more, and NYC is no different. I pick up energy very easily and then it gets into my blood and my bones and suddenly it's all I do, all I think about. Success, competition. For some people, it's nurture. For me, it's poison.

Step back. Do less, and be more. It was the only thing I could do in Paris, and I did it well. It's interesting to note that when I was in that state, I had incredible - almost scarily so - power to create and craft my life. I guess when you're in the Now, creation and reaction happen at the same time. Thoughts and intentions are not much different from reality.

I want to go back to that state, wherever I go, and wherever I live. I mean it when I put that sentence in my life goals, and I mean it seriously. I don't think it's ever something that I can say, okay, I've achieved this, but something to work towards and check and evolve. Find the life in alive, and be there fully.

Sounds like a good time to me.

Poetry Edition: Diamond Dirt

We were like criminals, covering diamonds with dirt. 
Hiding its brilliance, and so the guard should 
laugh to himself, thinking what fools, these two;
coveting dirt as though it were diamonds. 
And yet thinks again, were I to have a bag of gold, 
perhaps I too would cover it, to keep it safe, 
and with this thought blazing, he should spring to his feet, 
racing to where we are no longer, and, 
bitterly disappointed, should laugh to himself, 
thinking what a fancy I've had!; these were nothing but fools, 
and besides, were I to have a sack of diamonds
I'd wear them all on my fingers, and all would hail me, 
mistaking me for a King. 
Such foolish fools!, he should think, such stupid criminals, 
to cover their loot in dirt, and shuffle along 
like the depraved beggars they are, carrying sunshine
and calling it dirt. 

Life, tumbling along

Spring break is over, officially as of tomorrow morning at 9AM.

It seems very strange to me to be going back to school, classes, whatever it is I do on a daily basis. The break was no real break but a full, busy, insane mess of work and studio time, with a few late nights with friends because, sheesh, it's spring break. I spent 30+ hours in the studio and have the general feeling like I need another break from this one.

But it was life. It was life and it was full and now I can't imagine doing anything else. School -- like the midterm I have on wednesday and the fact that I never did write that paper for music hum I wanted to get out of the way -- is secondary, and mildly annoying.

I think they call that senioritis.

I started the week with a 24 hour fast, which I've never done before. I had noticed, some weeks previously, that eating had become an issue -- finding the time to eat, certainly, but I had also lost my desire to. Sure, I did it, because I know I need to, but nothing looked good, tasted good, and never really satisfied. Of course it didn't have to do with food, but the larger problem of nurture. We use food to nurture ourselves, to feed our souls as well as bodies, and I had simply lost that -- very important -- part of my life.

So I decided to stop eating for 24 hours and use the time to meditate about fulfillment and nourishment versus deprivation and figure out where I could find the nurture in my life. I turned off my internet and my phone.

It's funny: the best thing you can do for your appreciation of food is to not eat for a long time. Even just 24 hours.

It was a very, very good thing. It's interesting how in deprivation there's always fulfillment and vice versa -- another thought was that deprivation is now, not forever. It's only a state categorized by now, and has no bearing on any further nows. It's quite encouraging, actually.

In the mean time, life is moving quickly. Less than three weeks until I leave for Paris, and two months until graduation. Strange -- but so exciting. I've worked through all my anxieties about returning to Paris and have reached a state of delirious excitement. I just hope that the next couple weeks fly -- and with my life as crazy as it is, it should.

It's just like the title of this post. Life, tumbling along. Me, caught inside the now as it turns into the next now and the next after that, with 'after' somewhere between a dream and a reality. All I can do is walk in the direction I want to go, and assume that the path will arrange itself under my feet.

Stupid, or Visionary? (We'll find out in a few years)

I'm graduating in May. I think I've probably mentioned that. I certainly talk about it a lot -- I'm sure you've noticed, and can't wait until it happens so you can stop hearing about it.

Well, I talk about it because I can't stop thinking about it. What does it mean to transfer from the world of academics to the Real World? To be a "real person"? To live, to have time, to support yourself with the work you do?

It's a huge, giant, and pretty scary transition. I've spent 21 years in school, being schooled, etc. It's the only thing I know how to do. And now I, along with my classmates and countless others, must enter the world as it is and are somehow expected to live competently.

I'm not unique in going into the arts; however, I am one of few. In today's world, it seems like career suicide. The arts are dying, and the economy is already bad. How do I expect to make it Out There?

Well, how should I know?

I've noticed something that goes on in my head. I get a lot of e-mails about arts administration internships for the summer, most of which seem to be with reputable companies doing interesting work. I also get a lot of advice to go into teaching. And while I understand the reasoning behind both paths, and why it would probably be a Good Idea for me to pursue either or both options---

I don't.

Whyever not? Something in my chest just protests whenever I think about it. I had a dream, sometime last semester, in which I was wailing about not getting to go to a ball -- "I want to dance!" I remember waking up with that cry echoing in my ears.

No--I don't want to produce shows that I should be dancing in/choreographing, and I don't want to teach people to do what I should be doing myself.

Sometimes I think I really should consider it, just as a part-time solution. And then the screaming comes back. No, it says. Do what you want. What you love. And don't make compromises.

I'm either stupid, or a visionary.

I guess we'll find out a few years from now.

Re-opening Pandora's Box: Going Back to Paris

Let's call a spade a spade: in case you haven't heard, the eleven months I spent in Paris last year was hands down the most transformative experience of my life. However many months removed -- eight, I think -- I'm still figuring out exactly how transformative and what the ramifications are.

I probably couldn't tell you exactly what happened. All I know is that I spent a good several months after I came back trying to reconcile the person I had been and the person I had become. It was like staring in a mirror and having no idea who the person looking back was.

Well, I'm going back. Five weeks to the day, to be exact. And I'm not quite sure what to think.

Of course, I'm excited. I've been told by numerous sources that they have never seen me so at home as when I was in Paris. I found something I wrote about halfway through my time there: I don't know if I love Paris, but all I know is that I fell into living here as easily as breathing. There are people I haven't seen in months, and the culture, the city, the food...

But I also know that when I left, I left some incredibly powerful energy behind. And honestly, I'm not sure -- and I'm a little concerned -- about what will happen when I reopen that existence. It's not anything I can prepare for. Hell, I tried to prepare for the culture shock, but found myself facing a monster whose face I didn't even recognize.

Of course it won't be the same. A lot of time has passed since I left, and I've changed again. But I do wonder.

And then there are times when I don't worry, and I just remember how completely and ferociously alive I was, and I can barely speak for impatience.

I may have to amend the title of this post. I'm not going back to Paris.

For a week, I'm coming home.

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.

The Artist's Conundrum: Validation and Destruction

I'd like to talk about a struggle that is not necessarily exclusive to artists, but certainly particular to them. It's particularly prevalent in my life at the moment, or at least, it was this week.

Artists make art. I think we can all agree on that. Since the days of the Renaissance, art and life have become inextricably entwined, to the point that the artist is generally agreed to be expressing his soul in whatever he creates. Art is personal, and we as artists take it so.

Let me restate that: there is a prevailing feeling that, as an artist, you have to prove yourself to the world that the art you make is worthy, and by extension, that you yourself are worthy of being called an artist. It's a deeply vicious cycle.

You know the show "A Chorus Line"? It's like all of the characters in that show: cynical, desperate, wondering what they need to do to prove that they're worthy of the part. Life and the audition become one another. Life itself looks like one giant audition.

Conventional wisdom says we can't avoid that. If you're stupid enough to go into art as a career anyway, you sure as hell better be creating something worthwhile. It's a big struggle to be noticed, to get acclaim, to do something, to be something, to stand out. Right?

This past week I fell into the trap. I felt dearly as though I had to prove myself to my peers and my superiors and no one was buying it. I was looking for validation and ended up feeling decidedly shat upon. The result was a small incident that prompted a deep, burning rage - and by the way, I don't just get angry about things - and me in tears - and by the way, I don't just cry about things. It takes a lot to do both, and with one simple thing, I was at my worst.

That, my friend, is some high class self-destructive behavior.

But then, in talking to my dad, we started to discuss alternatives to this "conventional wisdom." What if we don't always go around trying to prove ourselves, and just create instead?  Is that even possible? Can we get to a place where we don't have to satisfy the demands of our ego?

It's a subject for another post, but it's the life I'm trying to live -- the state I'm trying to get to. When all I have to worry about is staying true to the creative vision and artistic integrity of whatever it is I'm creating.

I'd say that's pretty radical.