What would come to mind if I were to ask each of you what inspires you? How would you answer if I were to ask you what it is like when you meet someone you admire or respect for the first time? What would you say if I were to ask you to describe what the experience of discovery is like, how you feel, how it affects you, what it means to you…intellectually, emotionally, creatively, physically?
Would you answer truthfully about your fears, about your success or disappointment in the journey? Are you okay with not knowing, not being perfect, about having to step outside your comfort zone and ask of yourself something you think you might not be able to do? What if that ‘discomfort zone’ were public and you would be criticized and written up for all to read about forever? What if you couldn’t have a Do-Over? Can you find satisfaction in the midst of criticism? Or would you slip into coulda, shoulda, woulda?
I could write another dozen questions and there would still be more to ask, because I am not sure we ever learn anything about ourselves if we always stay in our comfort zones. I am not sure we ever learn anything about ourselves if we don’t surround ourselves with people who ask more of us. It’s one thing when we ask it of ourselves. But it’s something else entirely when it is in an investigative partnership with another person and there is no way of knowing whether the outcome will fulfill our definition of what is good.
I love stories about partnerships, about every kind of melding of creative, intelligent minds – author and agent, filmmaker and cinematographer, theatre director and playwright, musician and producer, designer and seamstress, architect and interior designer, painter and model, entrepreneur and venture capitalist…dancer and choreographer.
I post about dance often because the essence of it is the creation of something that is only possible if there is great trust, playfulness, vulnerability, and a mutual willingness to explore and discover between the dancers and the choreographer. The great choreographers created on, or for, or with, a muse of sorts, each talent – the choreography and the dancing – “expressed” by the other’s interpretation of it.
Wendy Whelan is an extraordinary dancer who has spent her entire career in the world of ballet. Restless Creature, a series of dances (conversations) between Whelan and four choreographers (Kyle Abraham, Joshua Beamish, Brian Brooks and Alejandro Cerrudo) each of whom are also her dance partners, is Whelan’s venture into the world of modern dance in partnership with four different (male) choreographers. She talks in each of these videos about process, about discovery, about beginnings.
For those of you who are artists, no matter what kind, I thought this might resonate. And, for what it’s worth, as a writer I post about dance and I absorb as much of it as possible because writing is choreography. It is movement. It is energy. It is music. And a reader is a kind of partner. There is nothing passive about reading. It is very much an action, as is being in the audience at a play or a performance of any kind. It appears to be passive…but I venture to say there is nothing at all passive about listening, hearing, seeing and feeling.
I wish each of these dances were available in their complete form but the dance world doesn’t make it easy these days, either to see one nearby or on the net. Restless Creature is only traveling to nine cities (the size of the American dance audience? ‘Tis a pity if true…)
There is also a review in the Times, which I am not attaching because frankly I don’t think it’s nearly as interesting as listening to Whelan herself talk about her process. They are available on Vimeo as well (which is rather more aesthetically pleasing than YouTube, but YouTube makes it slightly easier to view one after another.
Ego et Tu, Wendy Whelan and Alejandro Cerrudo
Restless Creature, Conversations – Alejandro Cerrudo & Wendy Whelan
The Serpent and the Smoke, Wendy Whelan and Kyle Abraham
Restless Creature, Conversations – Kyle Abraham & Wendy Whelan
First Fall, Wendy Whelan and Brian Brooks
Restless Creature, Conversations: – Brian Brooks & Wendy Whelan
Waltz Epocha, Wendy Whelan and Joshua Beamish
Restless Creature, Conversations – Joshua Beamish & Wendy Whelan
In the spirit of exchange, conversation and my passion for dance…I offer them all to you should you be interested.
#blogsofaugust #dance #ballet
August 20, 2013 at 11:59 pm
My #postoftheday . Thanks Giselle Minoli
August 21, 2013 at 12:04 am
Wendy Whelan–an incredible dancer I’m so happy to say that I actually got to see her dance live with the New York City Ballet, the few times I could get to NYC. She’s venturing out deeply and I’d suggest a bit like French ballerina Sylvie Guillem (of the Paris Opera Ballet and the Royal Ballet in London but blazing new trails beyond pointe shoes). I’d love to see the 40-somethings Whelan and Guillem collaborate together. Wow, wouldn’t that be something amazing!
August 21, 2013 at 12:14 am
I love artists, I wish I was one myself often. Thanks Giselle Minoli .
August 21, 2013 at 12:20 am
Here’s BTW a documentary on Whelan: http://www.ket.org/cgi-bin/cheetah/watch_video.pl?nola=kmuse_000502
August 21, 2013 at 12:23 am
Ah… Denis Labelle, overseer, you are a prime example of someone who actively reads, sees, listens, feels, exchanges…and shares. Thank you so very much.
Luis Roca your words are so sweet…and you are right. It was unfair of me to ask all those questions. Perhaps downright cruel. Had I been more willing to step outside my own comfort zone perhaps I would have started everyone off by answering my own questions myself. I am caught red-handed. Mea culpa!
To your “We learn from failure but to truly learn it is usually close to devastating,” I so completely agree with that I am (almost) without words. Nor do I handle failing well. I have a miserable time with writer’s block sometimes and I have to remind myself to confront my fears. Sometimes I know what it is directly. Sometimes I have to dig. I personally find it harder to do alone than in partnership with another artist (of any kind).
Luis…you are always so willing to go down this questioning road with me and I truly appreciate it and the time you take to comment. Thank you.
August 21, 2013 at 12:25 am
Gary S. Hart I think you’d like these; and your family would as well.
August 21, 2013 at 12:42 am
Kena Herod I am flat out jealous and I admit it. I was turned onto Wendy Whelan by my Pilates instructor Patricia J. Reid, who I think you know, who was a ballerina with the Louisville Ballet and who had the great good fortune of knowing Whelan. I am jealous of that, too, and not ashamed to admit it. It’s particularly interesting when dancers get out of their comfort zones…Baryshnikov also into modern with Twyla Tharp and others. There’s something about that cross-cultural style conversation that’s exciting…like the idea of Lenny Bruce doing Shakespeare, or Chuck Close doing a pas de deuz with Sylvie Guillem (wouldn’t that be incredible?)
Dance makes me free associate in ways that few artistic mediums do because there are so many languages built into dance – the language of dance notation, the music, the partnering of bodies, the sexuality of the dancers with one another, the architecture of the use of space, the engineering of the movements…it really is virtually everything and then along came choreographers who have incorporated words. So unfortunate there isn’t more exposure…
All right…are you going to suggest and produce the 40-somethings? Must include Broadway Babies in that effort. Yes. It would be great…
August 21, 2013 at 12:53 am
Wisen Heimer I couldn’t have asked for a more honest (I think) and revealing (I think) answer. And even sort of a wisenheimerish one at that. I would guess, from what you wrote, that your ‘discomfort’ zone is improvisation and not doing something (conversation, dancing) from a technical and non-emotional point of view…because that was from what you describe rather trained out of you.
My last singing coach said that no one is tone deaf. There are only insecure, unwise and insensitive teachers who don’t know how to show a student their singing voice. He couldn’t talk to me about “notes.” He figured out, however, that he could say, “This note is green” and I would understand him. Bless him…RIP JG…
August 21, 2013 at 1:02 am
You were right… I am a dancer, and this piece provides much thought. Nice one.
I was inspired to take up dancing because of one person. That one person was enough for me to get over the fear of trying something new. As a dancer, you know you’re going to suck and look like an idiot the first few years you learn your art. But that inspiration was strong enough to make me overcome that fear of looking stupid.
August 21, 2013 at 1:08 am
A wonderful post Giselle, and your opening remarks about our comfort zone are quite timely and resonate strongly with me. its a constant struggle. The desire to be authentic and transparent and sometimes having to become someone else in a professional setting, modifying your natural communication style to get things done. I like to be myself, but what comes with that is usually occasions where I reveal too much. Now, there are things I would like to do creatively in my life. I’d like to make a documentary some day, or write some short stories, making them up as I go along, publishing them online. I think I’d enjoy that. I’d like to jump on a plane to some place I’d never been for a few days, and be a different, more outgoing self while I’m there. I see myself talking to strangers and writing about them when I get home. All of the comfort zone stretching activities appear to be creative, none are professional.
August 21, 2013 at 1:10 am
I know you enjoyed being Denis Labelle ‘s post of the day! I am up to my last marbles in editing a lawyer’s article who does not “get it” that online publications do not have PAGE NUMBERS! ;’) I need to find a dance class, fast.
August 21, 2013 at 1:13 am
Kena Herod What a fabulous video…watching…scuse please…
August 21, 2013 at 1:18 am
Meg Tufano You are hinting that I should be writing. I am being creatively inspired! With dance! Music! Beauty! Poetry! (And Yes, who wouldn’t want to be Denis Labelle’s Post of the Day?) 😉
August 21, 2013 at 1:36 am
Giselle Minoli I hope you enjoy the doc. Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon who is in it, is great dancemaker and clearly loved working with Whelan. I was lucky to interview him years ago.
August 21, 2013 at 1:54 am
Hello Izzaz Iskandar a few moments ago I had a conversation on the phone with my husband about doing something creative and the fear of looking stupid and of failing. Then I came back and read your words. How serendipitous. I respect and admire many people, and there are degrees of inspiration within those who have reached me in that way – artists, dancers, writers. That conversation – about failing and looking stupid – is part and parcel I think to the creative effort. Not one most people I know in the business world even admit to and in certain other professions the wall is up so thick around the ego it’s hard to chip down.
It’s an incredible thing, isn’t it…the willingness to suck and look stupid and know that you do…but wanting to, as Wendy Whelan says…be an artist. Ah…..thank you for coming to this as a dancer…
August 21, 2013 at 2:02 am
And Hello Gary Stockton. How very nice to hear from you….I empathize with the “…comfort zone stretching activities appear to be creative, none are professional.” Boy, I hear that all the time. Nothing like a little professional bone crush to squelch personal expression. I am not sure it’s wise, no matter how difficult, to succumb to the pressure not to reveal oneself. I think no end of good has come to so many companies as a result of that complicity. I’m not saying rebelling against it is easy…just that the opposite doesn’t get anyone, not to mention the company, anywhere at all.
And, in fact, I think the eons old conversation about art being a starving man and woman’s profession is so much rubbish. It is not the starving that scares people. It is the willingness to go single file across the exploratory abyss every single day. So much easier to show up to work and get a direct deposit every two weeks and not venture out of one’s comfort zone. And then years later there is regret for the complicity.
Get on a plane Gary. Write a story. Make a home-made video. See what happens. It all starts somewhere…
August 21, 2013 at 9:47 am
Everything, Giselle Minoli 🙂
August 21, 2013 at 11:40 am
And time Lance Hagood. Even if one has a Room of One’s Own, and money, you have to make the time, and then take the time, to investigate. Not sure what you mean by “such work can erode creativity…”
Mornin’ Ayoub Khote. There are balloons in the air this morning. Haze over the fields and balloons on top of that. It’s a sign (of what I don’t know!).
August 21, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Kena Herod Thank you for telling me/us about the documentary on Wendy Whelan. A website of inspirational videos for young girls would be a great thing – everything…science, the arts, medicine, business. While there are certain young girls/women who dream their dreams big, a strong family support system, which she certainly had, helps a great deal. Parents often think of this as “sacrifice,” but is it really? Is it sacrifice to clear a large room for your daughter who wants to be a ballerina so that she can recreate and choreograph dances? What is the difference between that and putting in a swimming pool for family recreation (which often don’t get used), or putting in a basketball court, or tennis court, or a den with a big flat screen TV on which to watch DVDs of all of the great international dance companies she dreams of joining?
If we can give our children physical activity as a diversion, we can give them room to explore whether they want to be artists or not. I always thought every house should have a room to make and play music, make art and create…not just to passively watch (movies of) other people doing those things…
August 21, 2013 at 3:28 pm
Giselle Minoli you know, I don’t know of any website quite as you mentioned. You’d think I’d know since my daughter is right at the age which such would be great. I’ve seen empowering girls sites that focus on rights and education but not more beyond that. If such a website that Giselle described above does exist of inspirational videos that covers a wide array of fields and activities, I’d love to hear about it.
August 21, 2013 at 7:58 pm
“Unspeakable work” Lance Hagood. I know it well. If there is any room left in the body, brain, heart and soul when it is that exhausted, sometimes the only thing that revives me is a dip in the creativity pool.
I hope your “unspeakable work” led to something constructive and positive…
August 22, 2013 at 12:30 am
Kena Herod In this moment I am thinking that this post was meant for an exchange with you. I send a signal out into the Universe about Wendy Whelan, you receive and listen to it, and then send back to me a video signal. I watched it last night, and then again from start to finish just now. The subject matter is everything I had meant to convey in this post, about the magic of communication, of conversation, of partnership and exploration.
There are no accidents, no coincidences. Yet if you do not send out a signal, nothing will come back.
Thank you…
August 22, 2013 at 11:32 am
Jari Huomo…I see you…what a great profile photo you have. I like it.
August 24, 2013 at 10:29 pm
chris c. you are the first to report that there is a problem with this video. The link has been working and I had not been aware that a password was necessary otherwise I would never have posted it. I have used videos from Vimeo before without incident, so I am not sure what is going on here. But I also posted the individual links to each video on YouTube, where they are all available together and where it is easier, in fact, to segue from one to the other. (Since they are on YouTube, I’m not sure what the issue is…). But anyway, thank you for navigating your way here from Ev Eric’s post. I appreciate you making the trip. It’s nice to meet you! If you have time, watch the videos. They are lovely and it is worth it.