moist Monday

The rain woke me up in the middle of the night. So did the cats jumping on the bed and James rolling on to my side. These definitely contributed to my Monday morning energy today. But, after not having participated in a creation/performance process since May, I am incredibly excited and grateful to be participating in this one. I love Carleen's feeling that she wants to "make fun dances." That's why I do this. Dancing is fun. It won't make me rich or famous, but there isn't anything else I can think of that would be as much fun to do for a living.

When I was a sophomore in college I broke my T12 vertebrae, and was told by many people to take the time off, reconsider what I want to do with my life. I tried. I couldn't stay away, and took a semester of dance composition (among other things) with a back brace on. When I tried to think of something, anything else to do with my life, everything else sounded awful for one reason or another. As hard of a life as it is trying to make your living in dance, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Part of our work today involved taking risks. We even made "risky" dances, though looking back I'm not sure how risky mine really was. We did a contact improv warmup, which felt risky for me simply because I haven't done contact in a while, and with a background in ballroom dance and set-choreography duets I am most comfortable with assigned roles in partnering, so the free form, trusting nature of contact creates a certain level of disequilibrium in me. But we must take risks in order to grow, so in I plunged and went along for the reasonably successful, exciting ride.

I am excited to see where the work takes us over the next few days. I'm thankful to be collaborating with such thoughtful, fantastic, experienced women. There is a certain level of kinetic excitement that you can only get from improvising. While set choreography can create a sense of authority and familiarity in the body, improvisation creates energy and intense awareness. To me, that sounds like a lot more fun right now.