"The seeds of an idea you planted long ago are about to blossom."
These are the kind words offered by a fortune cookie message that found its way to me long ago, then eventually found itself pasted to the inside of my journal, to live there for purposes such as this.
I sure hope that fortune cookie is right! I have been noticing things across the span of several months, when walking, out to eat, driving, running errands, watching TV and movies, chatting with friends and strangers; living, it seems. I was pondering this morning that all of my observations seem to be very people-driven. Interesting realization, considering my last big spewing of words onto this hyper-paper. Despite this realization of the importance of and quality within people, I find that I am desiring to go beyond my natural tendency to be drawn to people alone when it comes to the creation of comment through movement.
That being said, I created an inventory of ideas, both to see if it really is just about people and if there is anything worth really digesting, as well as to see if I have noted other infuences within my observations, all for the purpose of trying to make movement worth watching. While I was going to share this in a listed posted on this wall for all, it felt funny to me to simply free-for-all my ideas and how I got there, a worry rooted not in the idea of stealing, but more in the idea that I want to tell people these ideas through the dances I create, not a list on my blog. So indeed, this list was created, but is to be locked under the protection of my many layers of organized digital folders.
In the process of creating said list, I did start to notice a key; all actions, and then I suppose general currents within the world, are created by the actions of living things (people or animals), but their widespread affects become their own concepts. Therefore, it is indeed true that everything I notice seems to be "about people," but at the same time, people are just one part in a chain of ideas, depending upon what you prefer to focus upon within a given concept.
Another factor playing into my fear that I only ever work off 'people' is the fact that the formation and performance of my comments (my art, if you will) are completely centered around and dependent upon people. This is probably an element of why I have been drawn to dance and often find it difficult to be drawn into painting, something that I find awesomely reflective of my general existence as a 'people-person.' However, I am also realizing that this current is part of what makes consistently creating as a dance artist difficult. Sometimes, one is just not in the mood to be with people and converse, etc, or simply would rather just be alone (and we all have those moments, regardless of how much we love people). It is very difficult to respect such feelings in yourself when you are feeling the pressure to create consistently within dance - unless it is a solo, how are you supposed to create a piece that can be performed when you do not feel like working with people? I have this hang-up that it is assumed that unless you are shooting out work (quality aside) like you shoot out .....well...... I'll let finishing that analogy slide ...... that you are not actually an artist.
I used to wonder, at the beginning of my undergrad, why so much time passed between my professor's shows. After working at it a bit myself, it has become obvious; if your only task in creating work were to generate ideas and choreography, your shows would be much more numerous. Some people reach that point, where they have a whole infastructure of talented people behind them, whose jobs are to get the work produced and out there. Some people never get to that point. The important thing to remember is that there is always a process (accompanied by some time) to get toward that situation, or at least a permutation therein that would still make you happy and satisfied.
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