i finally clicked through and read sydney skybetter's letter to the dance community that's been dominating my facebook newsfeed since it was published on monday. in other news, isn't it interesting that i thought i was impossibly behind, reading an op-ed two days after it was posted?
anyway. i got to the bottom of that blurb and i kinda kept scrolling, expecting there to be more to it. (where's that advice? where's the new information?) there wasn't any more, and my initial reaction is basically "well, duh..." i appreciate that we're talking about this, but this is not really news, and there have always been routes for artists to take that are different than the path described in (beloved, flawed) dance movies.
i'm not performing in a full-time company. i've never received funding for my work from outside organizations. the NEA would clearly never look at what i'm up to. i've never performed at lincoln center. or in a basketball arena. i've never been in a viral music video. i've never been reviewed by a new york newspaper. the vast majority of my dance pals haven't, either.
what i have been doing? performing work that is engaging, fun, and very different one show to the next. performing regularly, professionally, in new york city. creating my own dances, developing my own choreographic voice. training in "old-school" modern dance traditions and with contemporary dance artists of several generations that i cherish the opportunity to learn from. this is what being an artist is about. you tell stories. you learn. and most importantly, you create.
furthermore, believe it or not, people are actually interested. people are wonderful and smart, and in general, understand the art of movement much more than we dancers generally give them credit for. i have received such valuable feedback from people in my life who are acquaintances or friends of mine who don't really know much about dance... but they come to my shows. they talk with me about my work. the fund my kickstarter campaign. they think about what they see and feel. and isn't THAT what it's about? creating work that speaks to you and speaks to others?
my life as a dance artist in new york is not really glamorous, hasn't brought me fame, and i get my health insurance from a separate job. but i'm still a dance artist in new york city - which, i will say, is more than this girl ever thought possible growing up in northern michigan. i refuse to consider that anything but success.
when young dancers - from my studio growing up, from my college dance program - ask me for advice, first i chuckle, because i'm not sure they really want my advice, but then i tell them the best thing i can tell anyone: just decide to do it. you'll figure the rest out.
the point is - none of this is new. the structure of the dance world has changed, no doubt, but the changes we're discussing today are rooted more than twenty years ago, around the time most of today's young artists were born. we know that we aren't stepping into the dance world that was around for the previous generation, or the generation before that. each generation has had its own journey and its own artistic climate. we can define success as any number of things. maybe we aren't showcasing work for hundreds of art patrons at the joyce -- maybe we're touching ninety people at a little old speakeasy theatre in the east village. it's all changing. it always has been. and we know it. and we will figure it out anyway, because we're here to create.
at the end of the day, we dance because we are artists. and the essence of any artist is just having the tenacity to do it. and continue to do it. start it. do it. figure it out.
