May Post…Revisited
I’ve been on hiatus for 3 and a half months. It wasn’t intentional. I guess it just came naturally. The coming down from my last performance in January was much harder than I could have ever imagined…Suddenly I was seeing possibilities to make work appear and the thought of a smooth ride in planning, making, delivering became too overwhelming. So I shut it down. I kept postponing the inevitable reflection process – I’ll start next week, I keep saying to myself. Then the week after. Then the week after next. And the next one…And the list goes on and on!
I thought I needed some rest – actually I did!
I thought I needed to clear the air – my flat was in total chaotic state at that time – as everything was on stand by while working on the piece.
As we reached February fully I thought I could take it easy – I rediscovered that I had other interests (let’s call them priorities even).
So, would it really matter, by the time we’ve come to May, whether I gave the piece the post-show review it deserved…And I need (ed)?
Would that make any difference?To whom? And how?
It certainly does – I “painfully” have learnt a few days ago!!?? Having decided to apply for ArtsAdmin’s bursary award, it felt obvious quite quickly that I would pick up where I left it with my January piece if I was getting selected.
Obvious?…Maybe in my memories of 3 months of hard work, battling pressure, going back and forth with any choreographic decisions made. Memories of numerous material left unexplored. Sensorial memories. Visual ones too.
Obvious…Indeed in my head but not on paper.
When it was time to formulate ideas, to recall what I’ve learnt from making the piece, what I’ve taken from its outcome, from the tremendous audience reaction the so-not-enthusiastic response from the critics, I got royally stuck. In other words, I failed to do my homework!
Realistically, it is more of a case of having underestimated the importance of the reflection process as part of making work, and therefore a case of having dismissed the benefits I get from it.
Like all old-fashioned stories with a moralistic end, there’s a good side to this one: making my way laboriously through the questions about my practice and the work I’ve made recently made me realize that my practice doesn’t need much developping as such. It needs to be nurtured though and taken care of.
My practice is – naturally? – shifting towards an unknown direction, as I’m growing older both in physical and artistic age. In that sense the piece was as much a repostioning exercise of my interests and likes within my work as a leap to a new approach to performance and dance (or the moving physicality shall I say).
Was the hiatus necessary? Yes…No. But unless I had accepted the fact the reflection process was being skipped consciously, it was inevitable.
Now it’s a question of reconnecting with the recent past without obssessing over a need to make it up for the lost time in between. Maybe putting that application in would have done the trick….?
Failing to do it already did!
