on creative redemption

photo by Earl McGehee

“You don’t look like you’re having fun up there,” multiple people have told me over the last month or so.

Fact check: true.

Tonight is the opening performance of what should have been my debut aerial solo, a longtime goal/dream of mine. I could go into all the reasons why it didn’t come together, but I’m not big on excuses. Suffice it to say: it’s not happening, it was my decision, and I’ve been an absolute wreck about it all week.

It’s not that I don’t love this practice— it is, and probably will remain until my body gives out on me, one of my favorite activities. But as showtime drew near, I felt my best Black Swan impression beginning to burst forth, and obviously that is not something that should be allowed to escalate.

Backstage during a rehearsal for my group piece the next day, I was busy being broody on the perimeter of a conversation between my classmates about why they love aerial dance so much. “It gets me out of my head and into my body,” was the general consensus. For them, it was a source of relief from the burdens and anxieties of the day.

I couldn’t help but notice that for me, it was the burden/anxiety of the day.

I picked up other mindset discrepancies as well: my instructors routinely give feedback to all the dancers about their connection (or lack thereof) to both the audience and to each other on stage. In group pieces, the latter is obviously important, but I take some issue with the former.

Why do I have to connect to the audience?

What am I trying to express to them?

Why must I be specific?

To those who know me well, it should come as no surprise that my mode of creative expression is more Roarkian than kumbaya. I picked a song that moves me to literal tears— isn’t that expressive enough? I made a collage of movement that is beautiful and complements the music. Isn’t that a sufficient reason to dance?

It’s up to the audience to be moved by what I leave out there on stage. I should not have to sell my work to earn approval and be happy with it. I will be the first to agree that there is therapeutic value in articulating with words what is already manifesting in other mediums: in my case, why my song speaks to me so deeply. But, when it comes to art and artistic expression, I believe that intentional design and thoughtful beauty are worthy ends unto themselves. (An aside: who knew that the path to the apex of Maslow’s hierarchy would be such a steep, treacherous climb?)

Art is by its nature both concrete and ephemeral, somewhere at the intersection of craft, skill, and creativity. Not all art speaks to all people; when it does, especially by design, I find it cheap and camp. I do believe that art must contain meaning, but that meaning must be naturally manifest, not manufactured. Granted, that line is fine, but it exists nonetheless. That’s what the artistic eye should be trained to identify and distinguish.

I’m proud of what I put together even if I could not execute it well enough to perform this week. I am deeply disappointed that it didn’t work out, and I am aware that my overconfidence cost someone else an opportunity to perform.

More than anything though, I am disappointed in myself for behaving the way I did in the face of failure. My ego reared its ugly head, and I know I was far from pleasant to be around this week. I pinned my personal redemption on doing this solo and doing it well— redemption from not having better grades, getting into a better university, being farther along in various life milestones, being a better daughter, better coworker, better contributor, better friend. Redemption from whatever it is that keeps me from being worthy of the things that I want in this life but have not earned yet.

What does my song mean to me, everyone asked? It means that I was lost and found. I came back from my death-by-a-thousand-cuts of cumulative missteps, I was ready to turn it around, ready to be superwoman.

Failing to accomplish even this was meta in the extreme. Even so, I should’ve accepted it with more maturity, humility, and grace.

I don’t know if I’ll be offered another opportunity to solo; I don’t think I’ve earned the right to ask for another shot any time soon. On the bright side, I now know in earnest what the piece looks like.

I’ll keep working on it.