Getting off the Couch: Part 2

The thought of not doing something that a huge part of me (that doesn't even feel like "me" necessarily because the desire isn't manufactured or dreamed up but just there) became more awful than the thought of doing the "something" and doing it badly.

Ryan Kasprzak on So You Think You Can Dance was interviewed right before he got cut (his brother, Evan, made it and is now in the top 14). [You can go here to watch highlights of their auditions from this season...really fun!]. Ryan does Broadway tap. He said that he heard over and over from teachers, producers, choreographers that he was too short, too chubby, too bald, too whatever to be successful in the kind of dance he wanted to do. "That shit kept me on the couch for four years," he said. He's done all kinds of things since he got off the couch. And he just auditioned for the next season of SYTYCD and will be going to Vegas for another shot.

At the end of graduate school, during my thesis defense, which marked a four-year MFA endeavor as well as a major shift from writing fiction to writing mostly poetry, one of my professors told me and the committee and those friends who'd gathered for the event that she almost fell asleep reading my thesis (a collection of poems).

Once you start, you have to deal with that who-are-you-kidding-anyway voice—and not always just from inside yourself. Then you have to actually keep doing the thing you got off the couch to do. You have to do things badly and deal with that. You have to hear criticism and experience rejection.

It's good for the bones is what I say—because you discover (or I did anyway) why you are actually doing something (i.e., Not so a certain professor will like your work). You find the you you are doing it for. You find that there is no Ultimate Final Approval. There are moments of glory—when you get published, do the performance, etc. But like artist Mike Mills says (see video on "outloud" blog June 19):

You just work your hardest and you do whatever the best is that you can, and you don’t like it...you don’t think you did very well so you do another job to prove that you're better than the last job you did and then the same thing happens and you do another one and then all of a sudden you're 41...and then you think I’ll do better on the next one and I’ll totally prove to everyone that I’m okay and you keep going and going...

It's more a lifestyle than a means to an end I guess is what I'm saying.

And the only way to get confidence—creative confidence—is to make things and keep making them—muscles, books, blog postings, photographs, dances, WHATEVER. And stick with the people who will cheer you on while you do it—but do it even if you can't find those people.

The best things I've heard from people after I've read my work in public are 1) they were moved and 2) it made them want to write and make things. That's not why I do it of course—any of it. I do it because when I'm not doing it, I sink deeper and deeper into my couch, wonder why I'm here, forget what the point is... Participating in the way that I do is the point. It's what gets me up every morning, makes me eat, post to my blog, go to work, see films, write poetry, go listen to live music (and exhaust myself in large rowdy throngs of other participants), be an extra in a video of your favorite band (see opening picture above)!

My friend KO was clearly inspired in a new way by Every Little Step. We had coffee Friday night and I saw it in her eyes. Something is changing and it's a beautiful thing to see.

Getting off the Couch: Part 1

The couch being whatever that place is, that magnetized, attractive, comfortable metaphorical piece of furniture that keeps you from doing what you know you want to do...

The other night I got an e-mail from KO who was talking about a movie she'd gone to see, Every Little Step*, a documentary which follows the journey of several dancers through auditions for the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.

Here's what she wrote in response to seeing the film:

When I was about 13 to 16 my dad used to take me to Broadway shows, and when I saw A Chorus Line (I think in '77 or '78)—that's what I wanted....It was so great to see these dancers that weren't all tall, skinny, flat-chested ballet types. I started taking jazz classes...I used to play the parts of the show in my basement, I had the album and would sing the songs when no one was home. But, being horribly shy, with no self esteem and certainly no one at home encouraging me—I shoved it to the back of my mind and whenever I thought about it—it was with the thought of 'Who were you kidding anyway?'

That last sentence is the most moving to me and the most important. I thought this for years after I quit gymnastics (and I even got to have a little bit of glory before I stopped competing). I didn't get to live my Olympic dream. I considered myself a failure for not staying with it. I don't think that now because I have a different perspective (ie; my body would not have held out), but I do know intimately, as a lot of us do, the sometimes-painful realization that "you can never go back." The really getting that you won't be 15 again. Or 18. That my right hip hurts if I move it a certain way...like in any direction besides straight ahead. That whatever I'm going to be or do has got to start right here with whatever I have and am.

Having said that, the present tense version of "Who were you kidding, anyway?" comes with the territory of living a creative life. For years, that phrase stopped me from doing anything. Writing. Dancing. Keeping a blog. Moving forward with creative projects.

I look at people who are successful—publishing books, performing, getting pieces broadcast on This American Life (ie; Things I Would Like to Do One Day...) And I'd get frozen in the mindset that that success, or even the "doing," was what other people did.

The belief is so specific that I used to imagine that those people all knew something that I didn't, that they got together at secret meetings, that they knew the "special people." But when I cleared all that shit away, I knew the only difference between me and them (in most cases) is that they got off the couch and did it. While I, more less, sat around just wishing I did.

This big, drastic couch period I am talking about for me was after a relationship ended. I was watching television, yup, on my couch, and it was some commercial with hip-hop dancers in it. And I felt the ache I usually did seeing amazing dancers. I want to do that! I could do that, too, if somebody just showed me how. But then "it's too late. I'm too old. I missed my chance." I heard myself. I thought: is that what I'd tell a friend if she told me she was aching to dance? No, I would tell her: go take a class! So that's what I did. I took a hip-hop class. The class led to being asked to be part of a group which led to rehearsing and dancing and competing and performing... it wasn't MTV. But there it was. The dream. (Did I mention I was not 18 doing this? I was 35. Just an FYI).

"Getting off the Couch: Part 2" tomorrow!



*

From Ballroom to Modern...

Had to watch the beautiful Russian Max Kapitannikov get cut from So You Think You Can Dance tonight. A most amazing ballroom dancer (and apparently a lot more...though he didn't show his colors enough on the show...here's a clip of him doing some funky hip-hop Latin fusion...).

Last night, I swooned over Jonathan Platero and Karla Garcia's duet. Jonathan is also a ballroom dancer (Latin) but this is a contemporary piece. What makes it so amazing is that he's never done modern dance in his life. Some gymnastics. But no modern. It's a subtle, quiet performance, but the lifts are gorgeous! Just wade through the first few minutes where they do this silly "get to know" segment, and I'd recommend stopping the video after the routine ends so you don't have to endure the obnoxiousness of the judges...they loved it, but still...the gushing almost ruins the performance:



Needless to say, they made it into the top 3 couples so were safe from elimination.

Confession

Not only have I been watching So You Think You Can Dance but, yes, my please-be-non-judgmental friends and readers, The Bachelorette. I can't help it. I like to watch it. Like driving by an accident. You can't help but look.

I know it's a shallow thang. And I know that there's no way Jillian (or any woman) could know if someone is "the one" in two dates, or in one date on top of a glacier, or on a couch in two minutes at a cocktail party. And I know that it's sort of weird when you think through the whole thing: like how could your soulmate be in a group of dudes that a network has chosen for you? And where's the racial and ethnic diversity? Obama did just get elected right?

There's something about watching the show that feels like a weird kind of practice...What would I do? What would I think about that dude? The wine guy from my hometown in California? Or the bartender from Texas? And why is no one asking her about her? And why doesn't she notice that? My favorite guy decided to leave tonight because he was going to lose his job. Sad. Ed. I'll miss him. (Yes, I have gone as far as thinking about what it would be like to be on such a show. Laura's version. The Thinking-Outloud version. The I'm-37-and-fun-and-single-and-a-whole-bunch-of-other-things version)

Thankfully, I don't really need my own show (tho I'm not completely against it). I go on dates. I have sushi. I go to coffee (well, I go to decaf). I make tentative plans to go bumper boating. I just say yes when I want to, and I go, and I see how I feel. And if I'm not feeling it, I say so. Which has been the hardest part but the best thing to learn how to do in a kind, clear, unapologetic way.

There are always the guys I wish would ask me out, and they are probably the ones that won't ask me out, ever. (And they are the ones that probably shouldn't, for my own good, because they are too busy with their careers or just plain not fit for the phenomenon that is moi. So says a woman who made herself the most amazing Salmon, asparagus, sweet potato, lemon and rosemary dish and wanted to cry for two reasons: 1] because it was so damn good, and 2] because there wasn't anyone to share it with.)

Attack of Movement

Real, unadulterated, unmanufactured inspiration comes when I least expect it--the cliche of all cliches. But, contrary to what the heart says, inspiration heats up the more one follows the ache--the exact thing we [read: I] want to avoid.

For example, I have a difficult time watching gymnastics on TV. When I watch the little ones flipping and spinning and balancing, my entire body remembers and longs for that kind of strength and control again. It makes me wish I were 15, not 37. (Here's young me in my golden years of competition.)


My body--and I suppose I'm talking about the creative impulse within the body--doesn't know that it's been 22 years since I've been able to move like that.

I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance. It's a two-hour ache fest. I don't want to watch it. Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way lady, she says that particular type of ache means something--creative envy most of all. Not watching the show would be avoiding what I know is in me. And it happened, by the way, the inspiration, the white horse, whatever you want to call it, when I watched 17-year-old Nathan Trasoras' audition. I was completely caught off guard and found myself half-weeping on my couch:



So I looked him up on YouTube and found more. And watched more. And cried more. Just like how Gogol Bordello has lit a fire in me--in a way that can't really be accounted for--Nathan's dancing has had me crying, and writing e-mails to friends, one to Nathan on Facebook, and another to my college dance teacher (now friend) who, dancing strong at the age of 49, reminds me that it's never too late and, bless her, pointed out, from having choreographed for me and danced with me and seen me move, that she could see me in Nathan's dance, his "attack of movement, clean lines, the feeling behind what he does." So Laura's going to make a dance. Even if the dance turns out to be some big creative mess. Face everything, avoid nothing. Isn't that the spiritual warrior's credo? Something like that...

Here's Nathan again. I'm fine if it doesn't move you like it moves me. Every time I watch this, I'm inexplicably filled. And, as we know with creative fire, it can't be explained or manufactured, which is what makes my reaction so awesome:




We have bodies.
Damn.