ADF 2009

I find myself back at the American Dance Festival for the fifth time in six summers…that seems a bit much.  It’s strange for me to think about all that has come to pass since then.  People in the ground, companies emerging and folding, elections, recession, all that external mess that is context and environment and a certain kind of life.  More shocking, of course – and this is no surprise as it’s my own acute experience – are the changes which have taken place in my own life, internally.  When I came here for the first time, in 2004, I had just started to dance.  I knew what a tendu was, and a contraction…grande plie and battement and all that…but there was no talk of soul, there was no real thought of DOING this full time.  I hadn’t been to Russia, hadn’t performed in Poland or Hong Kong, had yet to begin developing ‘my own’ technique class…I was learning who Ohad Naharin was, and knew only one thing about William Forsythe – that I didn’t like him.  Pina Bausch was a faint whisper on the wind and turn out and extension remained, in my mind, paramount.  That summer I danced for Gerri Houlihan and took class with her and Brenda Daniels…of course that was also the summer that I met Tatyana Baganova…the crazy Russian who would drastically change my life (or at the very least my 20’s).  I return to the festival this year to teach one master class, visit a Russian who I last adventured with to the Arctic, and to visit another long lost friend…one whom I had met that first summer at ADF.  I come back here with some experience, some knowledge, perhaps too many opinions, and more questions than ever.  I seem to waiver between wanting to do great things, to BE something great, and having a much more peaceful and perhaps more realistic expectation for myself…that my true task in life is to simply be kind and empathetic, to help people (including myself) along their ways…to beautify the world in every way possible.  Not to be a revolutionary…but to be some sort of gardener.

Amidst the craziness of 200+ students at ADF every year…each visit has been accompanied by, for me, a fair amount of loneliness and reflection.  Maybe this is why I keep coming back here…it’s a sanctuary of sorts, with the slowing heat and deep forests…with teenagers buzzing about like flies on dung, and the occasional beautiful person/dancer/human who has some perspective, and may be a bit jaded, but who still chooses to come here and fly across the Ark and applaud the efforts of so many hard workers.  

Dancers are workers, after all.  The greater working force might not want to acknowledge this…as the dancer works alongside and with their art, all the time…their work is soulful and deep.  In some cases (unfortunately, all too rare) the work is accompanied by a living wage – but most importantly it is accompanied by rigor and fulfillment…something which I think many dancers can find in a simple port de bras, and many people, I fear, never find at all.

I will return to San Francisco, and to my company, in just a few days.  Many tasks will need to be accomplished as we head into our second season…as we prepare to continue.

The days and weeks used to seem too short…now the months and years seem to be spent too far in advance such that I’m planning, already, for my efforts at 30 – five years away.  I bought a new computer recently, that’s been nice.

There are so many choices one has to make amidst two non-options: 1.) we will end up dead and 2.) until we end up dead, we have only to continue forward.  This puts us folk in a tricky situation…I imagine life is a series of choices, navigating that situation…I’m constantly hoping that the questions which plague my 25 year old brain are those of youth and immaturity, but I fear (and suspect) that they persist throughout our journey.

The work with FACT/SF is good work; I only want to make it better.  I believe I can.  I miss Ekaterinburg and the balcony and thought and compassion and nicotine and whiskey.  I feel like I’m so rarely making art, and so rarely thinking about art…which is surprising because I am a full time artist.  Weird.

A good friend recently mentioned how the corporate world has pulled her away from art making…I wonder if the trappings of my own ‘corporate’ world have done the same.  Time to sleep, then go home, and get back to work.