Sidelined

So here we are.  After 7 years of dancing with TDC, the 4 years prior spent dancing in college, and the 14 years prior spent dancing in Greenwood, Indiana, it’s pretty self-evident that life has taken some serious turns, some of them unexpected but all of them fulfilling.

And now life has given me another unexpected turn and I find myself in yet another unfamiliar phase in my long-term relationship with dance: on the sidelines. Still at rehearsal, but not necessarily in rehearsal, witnessing the creative process instead of participating in it. It’s a fascinating and disconcerting position to be in. While watching my fellow dancers work, even now, only a month removed from creating material myself, I get lost in what they are doing and creating, watching them work as I would watch a dance concert, with enjoyment and a complete lack of understanding of how hard each dancer is working. Watching the process I was just recently a part of, it is remarkably startling how immediately lost that sense of work, frustration, and struggle is.

This year’s new work offers particular challenges in the way Margi has gone about structuring the creative process – structuring it as such that there is no structure as to what a dancer can do, but only addressing what they CANNOT.  Rather than having a list of qualities, actions, moments, to include, dancers only have a list of what they cannot do – navigating the movement invention period with each other through individual “blind spots” if you will. Again, fascinating to watch, particularly the movement, duets, and group phrases that have been created, but upon flopping down on the floor at 10pm, I see complete exhaustion on the dancers’ faces. Not just physical exhaustion, but mental – mentally drained and spent.

Regardless of how awkward and tense the dancers say they feel in these awkward and tense relationships they are creating, they are delving into areas of self and creativity that I have not yet been witness to in my time in TDC. In my observation, it’s not without some twinges of jealousy that I am not a part of this process with them, but then again, I would also be missing the bigger picture of creativity, instead, stuck in my own frustration and exhaustion at the process.

Which is better? Jury’s still out. I never anticipated myself just sitting on the sidelines in my dance career, but I must say throughout my life, it is those situations I least anticipated that I learned the most. 

Submitted by TDC Dancer Kaitlin Bishop on Monday, November 5, 2012.