The Ultimate Sacrifice

Throughout the wildly political 2016 calendar year, social media became all sorts of heated platforms. Long gone were the days of respectful conversation and friendly debate. This new age of irresistible public posting with resistant, closed-mindedness permeated my feed as I tried to stifle the stress of possibly losing my rights and watching the positive progress of 8 years disappear with the ding of voting machine buttons. Nonetheless, I did everything in my power to avoid arguments on social media while staying a part of important conversations. And this is how I continue to treat social media while the remnants of this election cycle still have people on an argumentative edge. Now this is where this post swings from political to dance. The other day I was sifting through my feed to find a former professional dancer I was acquainted with through Pacific Northwest Ballet's school (who is now retired) reposting the article I shared in my most recent blog post about dance potentially causing psychological harm. Now a mother, her sharing of this article was accompanied by a statement that her daughter would never be a part of the art form to which she once gave her full self. I felt the need to turn this public thought into a caring conversation, and luckily she responded with the same sentiment. And from that respectful chat this post was borne.

A local Philly sculpture - "Freedom" by Zenos Frudakis

There is just something about being a former professional dancer. I can speak to this from both perspectives, as I am out of my performance career, but still maintain dance as every aspect of my career and self. While there are short-lived, wildly euphoric highs involved in the life of performing artists such as dancers, there are also desperately painful lows. These lows are often accompanied with physical pain that can drive a dancer into the ground before they fully blossom. Most professional dancers don't stop dancing because they have consciously tied up all ends of their performing careers and feel like they have accomplished what they set out to do. More often, they retire due to complication from injuries, disappointment in casting and organizational progression, and beyond. This array of painful endings has more dancers leaving our career feeling bitter than sweet (not even bittersweet). So, why even try to be a part of this career?

What it comes down to is that a career in dance is the ultimate sacrifice. It is the sacrifice of one's body, mind, will, and lifestyle. A dancer may come off as selfish in their full-out ambition to have a stage career. But the truth is that a dance career can't be selfish, as it is submitting oneself over fully to the art form. Perhaps, the art should instead be deemed selfish. And all of the stepping stones to get a dancer to the point of performance in a professional setting prove that they are willing to submit themselves, even if they aren't aware of it.

One of my biggest challenges as an educator in dance involves getting through to parents, children, pre-professional students, and open class students that I am not coming into the studio with any intention but to prepare them for a lifestyle in dance. Whether that means you are striving to have a career or you only intend to take open classes for health, fun, and fitness, I will enter the classroom to impart my knowledge and share our art form to better you along whatever path you wish to take. Initially, I have found this is often met with resistance and confusion. A few examples of this include an open class student telling me they come to class to have fun and I make them think too much. Or a young student taking my contemporary class once and her mother pulling her from subsequent classes because of my approach to instruction, only to return 3 months later because the other student's parents who gave me a chance had so much positive to say about my teaching methods. The struggle as an educator is real. And it is especially difficult in our field because young dancers don't understand that there are many challenges a dancer must face in order to know whether they can be one of the few who can sacrifice certain aspects of their lives to be a dancer. A life in dance is a life of sacrifice. And these sacrifices aren't common or comfortable.

There are many points in a dancer's education that can be considered stepping stones towards testing out the waters of a career. Your first recital. The first time you feel the pain of pointe. That point when you realize more of your friends have quit dance than remained. The first time your teacher is unusually critical of your dancing. The days you have too much homework, but you still refuse to miss class. The time when you choose to move away from your family before you are even your own legal guardian. The first time you get that rejection at an audition. The first time your company doesn't cast you in a ballet. The first time you suffer a career-threatening injury. The first time somebody mentions your weight. The first time your friend is unkind to you because they are jealous of your casting. The first time you don't want to wake up to take class because you are so exhausted. The first time you consider your life without dance. Most dancers don't get past point three in this paragraph. But those who do are commonly accepting each subsequent sacrifice as a necessary step towards living out their dreams to become one of us rare human super-humans called a professional dancer.

Nicholas Rio, Ali Block, & dancers of Columbia Ballet Collaborative sacrificing their Sunday night to dance my new work

While a dance artist can perform seemingly supernatural feats with their bodies, they are also doing the same with their minds. I remember the first time I had a stone bruise on the heel of my foot around the age of 14. I was quite convinced that I wouldn't be able to dance for a week, let alone walk. But I learned that day that, while I felt the pain, I could ignore it enough to continue. Eventually, I forgot about it. This evolved into handling being so sore day after day and still attending class and rehearsing for 8 hours without realizing that most people would completely shut down under the same circumstances. But then there is also the ability of a dancer to stifle emotional trauma and still perform at a high level. For all of the effort put in by most dancers day in and day out, they may still find themselves in the 2nd cast of a ballet. Or, perhaps, they were learning a new role for weeks and the director chooses not to put them onstage for the production. Even under these circumstances, dancers keep trucking on and perform their job to the best of their abilities. But what about all of the hard work they put in? What about the extra time they spent at home after their 8 hour dance day watching footage of the role and marking the steps in their living room? Don't they deserve a chance for all of their effort? Perhaps, they even put in more effort than the person who got to perform that role. 

With all of these different ideas colliding into one, what most dancers are forced to reconcile, but rarely see, is that dance never owed them anything. Just because you walk into a studio and work every ounce of your being off doesn't mean you deserve to step on a stage and enjoy the bliss of performance. And most people don't ever recognize that, even after their career is over. Dance is always a gift and rarely a straightforward response to all of the effort you put into it. Due to the lack of open dialogue about this harsh reality of the life of a dancer, there is an epidemic of bitter, jaded dancers expressing how dance victimizes its participants and leaves them broken with little to show for it. This is often an inner dialogue of their perceived failure of expectation. An expectation that dance promises no one. This reality isn't talked about enough during the training stages of a dance career.

Shira Lanyi & Allen Abrams in my work, Distinct Perceptions (Photo: Dave Friedman)

When this naivety is broken for a dancer, which is often caused by a case of physical or emotional injury, dance often turns from a personal passion into a personal vendetta. How can a dancer submit themselves to an art, then claim hatred for something that is so ingrained as a part of them? It could be the fact that they had expectations and weren't aware of what they were signing up for when they fell in love with dance while still aged in the single digits of life. But the way I see it is this. When you fall in love with somebody, you open up a more vulnerable part of yourself to this person. And if things don't work out, you often feel anger towards that person, if not hatred. So many people will say the worst things about their ex-lovers, even if they were married for years and years. My assumption here is that the brokenhearted must create negative feelings towards their ex-lover, otherwise they may find themselves still in love with them, even if they aren't a good fit today. For example, if they don't hate them for this, they may remember that they were the most generous of people. Or if they don't speak negatively of that, they may realize that nobody ever made them feel more empowered to reach for their dreams. In this vein, ending a career in dance that wasn't fully realized to one's expectations may lead a person to project negativity and bitterness towards dance to help them detach from something that they used to love more than most anything else. I've seen this happen among more retired dancers than you can imagine.

This is a lot of information to take in here. But what it comes down to is that we all fell in love with dance for a reason. Whether it was fascination with the super-human aspect of it, getting out of the house during your parent's dirty divorce, the only place you felt you fit in, or some other situation, dance doesn't owe you anything. It can offer you some otherworldly experiences. It can introduce you to the most diverse cast of friends. It can keep you fit, disciplined, and eager to enjoy a lifetime of progress and growth. But it doesn't owe you that Odette/Odile. It doesn't owe you a body that can withstand the wear-and-tear of near-contortionism. It doesn't owe you that meteoric rise to Principal. It doesn't owe you that final curtain call with audience members yelling bravo and tossing roses at your feet.

Many people look up to dance artists because they feel that they are ethereal creatures. Dancers look at their careers the same way. Infinite progress is the ethereal creature they seek to capture. But at a certain point, nearly all of us will hit our peak, as infinite is unattainable. And instead of looking up at the next tallest mountain with bitterness and disdain for its unattainable height, we should instead look down from the impressive heights we have climbed and enjoy the breathtaking view that lay before us.

Looking over Lake Eklutna in Anchorage, AK

Giving Everything for Your Art (or not)

Performing Mary Anthony's Threnody (Photo: Bill Hebert)

When I was a young, freshly professional 19 year old near-child moving thousands of miles away from home to join Houston Ballet, I was a bit of a bunhead. Actually, let's be honest here. I'm still a complete and total bunhead. During my short year with the company, I became great friends with my fellow Apprentice and (now) new Houston Ballet faculty member Alex Pandiscio (proud shoutout). We in our bunheaded glory would sit at his apartment sipping beer, watching ballet DVDs (or VHS :-o), and debate about everything from technique to artistry to production quality. When I left to join Pacific Northwest Ballet, I really missed having a friend that was equally, if not more passionate about our art form.

Once I got into the swing of things at PNB, more often than not, I found dancers trying to fill the gap between living your life as a dancer and living your life and dancing for a living. If I suggested a ballet viewing night, people would tease me. If I wanted to sit down for drinks after work and talk about technique, people would quickly ask to change the subject. Here I was, in one of the most inspiring companies in the country seeking greater inspiration than an 8-hour workday. I found that many of my colleagues didn't want to make dance their lifestyle, which is perfectly fine. But I preferred the opposite. So, when I finally took the plunge and left PNB, it was easy for me to use this as one of the excuses for me to leave. I told myself that I needed to be surrounded by people who would give anything and everything for their art.

After making my way to Philadelphia, my 22-week seasonal contract meant that I would need to seek gigs in between work periods with the contemporary company I was dancing for. My first (and only) foray into the Philadelphia freelance scene was performing for a small modern company that is based on the technique of niche choreographer Mary Anthony. To be completely honest, it wasn't really my thing. But I went into life after PNB with an open mind as to where things would lead me. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was surrounded by people who would do anything for our art. Anything!

At PNB, I was used to rehearsing for productions anywhere from a few weeks to a few days before getting onstage to perform. Preparing for this Philly Fringe Festival show, we spent nearly 8 weeks rehearsing (granted it was only 6-8 hours per week) mostly after the sun had gone down. Dancers came into rehearsals late, and it was acceptable, because they had regular day jobs. It wasn't uncommon for heated discussions to happen as the work was restaged. Some dancers were much more vocal than any dancer would be in a ballet studio, while others were so happy to be dancing that they would do anything and everything necessary to be a part of the company. The contrast between strength and submission was great and utterly shocking to my ballet world expectations. Beyond all of this, pay was only guaranteed to most dancers after tickets were sold or grants came through. This meant that some dancers didn't see any compensation for months after the work had been performed.

Some weeks before we performed, our group took a trip up to New York City to work with Mary Anthony herself. She was still kicking (barely) at the ripe old age of 94 years old. We were to have rehearsal with this woman, who cultivated an intensely respectful cult following, at her studios. This rehearsal would be followed by us sharing the work in a fundraising open rehearsal. While a few dancers had dropped hints, nobody prepared me for what I was about to see or experience.

After taking an elevator to the 8th floor of a building between St. Marks and NYU that housed the Mary Anthony Dance Studios (where she was still teaching class twice a week), we were dropped off on her floor and immediately turned right into the dressing rooms. We had been sitting on a Bolt Bus for a few hours, so I had been holding my bladder for a long time. I turned to one of my fellow modern dancers and asked where the bathroom was located. He simply responded, "Walk through the lobby, past Mary's bedroom, and it will be on the left." The comment didn't really add up to me. My first thought, "Oh, Mary lives here? I guess the studio is bigger than I expected." Nope! I walked out of the dressing room and laying right behind the front desk was Mary Anthony resting on her bed. YES, right behind a desk in the lobby.

Mary Anthony lived in her studio. The lobby consisted of a front desk, a bed, a dining room table, and a door to the bathroom. The dressing rooms tripled as a place to put your clothes on, the food pantry, and a litter box area for her cat that roamed the 8th floor. Between the lobby and studio was a small cove for a kitchen. The sacred dance studio was just a dance studio. The place wasn't in disarray, but it wasn't very clean, there were nails sticking out of the nearly plywood dance floor, and there were cans of roach spray in every room.

In my culture shock, I walked through the bedroom, past the kitchen, and into the dance studio for warm-up. As I felt a nail poke my foot through the foot-blackening wooden floor, my chest tightened and another dancer must have seen the panic in my heart. She looked at me and said, "No nail here. I'll switch spots." After getting our sweat on while Mary Anthony was awakened and prepped for rehearsal, a quietly stoic figure walked with assistance into her proud home one inch at a time. She sat in rehearsal without changing expressions. When a correction needed to be made, she whispered into her adoring former dancer's ear. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, this woman raised her voice into a boom. She stared at me with eyes dilating, "you are a SAILOR! you've had a HARD LIFE! YOU'RE...TOO...PRETTY!" That was the most she said that day. But it was said that she was most her former self in that one moment.

Performing Mary Anthony's Threnody - Me on the right (Photo: Bill Hebert)

Our open rehearsal had a minimal showing of support. We enjoyed wine and hors d'ouevres in the lobby immediately after performing Ms. Anthony's work. Living to the frail age of 94 must be exhausting, so Mary's assistant put her to sleep. To paint the clearest picture possible, Ms. Anthony lay on her back asleep in her bed, eyes covered with a floral sleep mask as dancers multiple generations past Mary's prime sipped wine and chatted around her frail sleeping form. As I stood over Mary, sipping my dry wine, and appearing to listen to another dancer talk about their next gig, I had an utterly deep realization. Maybe there is such a thing as giving too much to your art.

On the bus ride back to Philly over a smuggled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, the dancers who had shared this experience previously told me about their first venture to the Mary Anthony Dance Studios. I think the thing about most shock is that you can only be shocked by the same thing once. These dancers now saw this experience as commonplace to learning a Mary Anthony work. As stories continued to flow, I learned that many in the dance community considered her a legend in the same realm as Graham and Limon. Mary started her own company, and since many of the dancers whom she hired had difficulty finding work in the prime time of the classical modern dance era, her dancers not only adored the woman but saw her as a motherly idol. Mary was not so nice in her less frail days. But she was passionate and had a very clear vision. She also performed well into her 70's. At one point, as her studio was struggling to survive, Mary was offered a tenured position to teach at New York University. But Mary felt that she would have sold out by taking that position. So, she chose to continue living the life she did. One where the line blurred between studio and home, work and life.

Performing Mary Anthony's Gloria (Photo: Bill Hebert)

Near the end (Mary had impressively lived over 2 years after this experience), it became clear that Mary had completely and utterly devoted her life to her art form. And I have such an incredible respect that she was able to remain so honest to her values as an artist. But meeting and working directly with somebody who had such great dedication and longevity that her life and art fused into one entity without care for quality of life taught me a very valuable lesson.

We all devote ourselves to this beautifully painful art form to one degree or another. Some people leave dance at work, others bring it home with them. And for others, dance is literally their home. I used to be more judgmental about how people that call dance a career chose to make it a part of their lives. But after this experience, I view things quite differently. I'd give most everything in my life to be a part of this art form. And while I don't look down on people who do give absolutely everything to this art form regardless of their well-being, I find that it is best to find a middle ground that makes one feel fulfilled and equally alive as a human being. As we are not dancers living as people. We are people living as dancers.

Create Your Own Blog

Writing this blog

When I started this blog a little over two years ago, I had little idea that it would become a great platform for me to share, educate, and speak out about issues while on the journey of my dance career. In fact, I only really started this blog because I was scared shitless about finding my own work. I knew that I had writing skills and a unique perspective. But I saw blogging more as a personal journal that could potentially be used as a marketing tool instead of a platform for sharing my experiences, thoughts on dance politics, or a handbook for independent contractors of all professions. Yesterday, Life of a Freelance Dancer reached over 50,000 views. And as it approaches 100 posts (this will be #99), I have decided to share some of my secrets about creating a blog and how to write compelling posts that draw your audience into your unique world.

I don't know if it's our age or more of a popular trend within the ballet world, but I have had a great many friends mention to me that they want to start freelancing. Since I started a blog that is unique and contains material that has generally been untouched in the past, I get a lot of people reaching out to me about working as an independent contractor. During a handful of these conversations, more than a few of these dancers have told me that they are considering starting their own blog. They see that I have been successful with it and figure, "If he can do it, I can do it." The problem I often find, though, is that not much more thought has gone into something that can be a monumental task.

The first thing I do when somebody mentions that they are going to start a blog is ask questions. I always begin with, "What is your niche?" The obvious answer for us is dance. But is that enough to be compelling? There are many styles of dance, different types of dancers, and a multitude of tracks that somebody can be on throughout their career. The first thing that a potential blogger needs to think about is finding their niche. This special place one hopes to hold in the blogosphere needs to be one topic in which the blogger has endless knowledge and exponential passion. It may seem like an easy task to sit down and write about a subject here and there, but it is absolutely impossible to maintain one's writings over an extended period of time if the topic doesn't mean the world to you. This is the ultimate reason that most bloggers fizzle out within the first month or two of writing.

Once a writer chooses their niche, they need to take other things into consideration. How often do you plan on blogging? If a blogger plans to write whenever they feel inspired, they are not going to be able to maintain an audience. Even things that people are most passionate about usually swing up and down on the scale of inspiration. When I started LOFD, my plan was always to write one blog post per week. I didn't know if this was feasible, but it seemed often enough to keep people coming back to check in and infrequent enough to keep me from burning out. Two years later, the longest I've gone without writing has been two weeks. And while I wasn't posting during that period, it wasn't because I was uninspired. It was because I was too busy rehearsing or performing to sit down and create content. It is extremely important to post with regularity, as it will help you to maintain your audience. And, believe it or not, if nobody is reading your blog, you are that much less likely to continue writing.

Now that you have considered your niche and time management, why would somebody want to read your blog. Just writing about a specific area of expertise doesn't mean that everybody who has interest in that topic will read what you have written. I have heard people tell me, I'm going to write about me doing this and my review of that and my experience with this and my thoughts on that. My response can come off pretty offensively, but it is one of the most important things to consider. What makes you so interesting? So, you are a ballerina that likes fine dining. Or you have a special knack for knitting leg warmers. But just because you are passionate about something and you shared it on a public platform doesn't make you or your writing interesting. What makes a writer compelling is finding their own unique voice. When you talk to somebody in person, you can hear their vocal inflection as they speak. But reading a smattering of letters jumbled together on a blog with pretty colors in the background and IPhone photos in the foreground does not draw an audience into a story. Creating a unique writing style within your own content will make one far more interesting. Beyond the way that I phrase my posts, I am known to be too openly honest for most of today's common social standards. But the combination of these two things give me a unique voice that makes my writings stand out in ways that others may not. The tendency is for people to watch somebody do something successfully and to attempt to become successful by copying how that person garnered their success. This rarely works. Find what is unique about you, put yourself out there, and people will read what you have to say.

At this point you've created your blog, so the next step is to write your first post. What are you going to write about and how many topics have you already compiled? Most first-time bloggers think that they are going to come up with all of their topics on the fly as they find inspiration. Some people can do this. But for most of us bloggers, we need to compile a list of possible topics for the future. I generally write about what I am experiencing or inspired by in the moment. But as I stated above, you don't always feel equally inspired to write. How are you supposed to write when you don't feel any motivation and it has been days since you last planned on posting? Nothing can destroy your drive to blog more than writing a handful of forced entries. Not only do these posts take too much energy to write, but they often come off as uninspired to readers. And as for maintaining readers with humdrum content, you can think of it like this. If you go to a restaurant once and the food is bad or the service was poor, how likely are you to return to that restaurant? Unless you have already pulled in a loyal following of readers, this can force people to stay away from your content before they even get to the entree. I always have a list of, at least, ten blog topics that I could write about if I can't think of any other subjects. I have gotten to the point where I rarely need to touch that list. But every once in awhile, I'm too busy to be imaginative or in too little of a writing mood to conjure up a new topic.

When trying to summon new material to write about, I find that I write best when I am inspired. What inspires you? I can be inspired by something that I have experienced at a gig, a conversation with a friend about dance politics, or even a random person walking down the street having a conversation with a fire hydrant. I find that when I am truly inspired by a topic, I can write a blog in a wildly short period of time. If I'm less inspired, the task is more tedious and takes a lot more effort. Keep in mind that inspiration doesn't always have to be positive. But, if you are inspired and passionate about something, people will be more likely to enjoy your content. How many times have you seen a street performer present an act skillfully with passion and stood in the street smiling to yourself. If you can write passionately inspired posts, people will respond the same way. And they will come back for more. Who doesn't feel good when they are pursuing something that they feel passionate about?

The main reason that bloggers continue posting in a public forum is because they want people to read their content. If you post and don't tell anybody about your writing, nobody will know it exists. Most people figure that they will simply post their blogs on their Facebook or Twitter. And they think that all of their friends will read what they write and then their friends will share with their friends and their blog will become famous. It unfortunately doesn't work like that. The more you sell your blog in your own social media feed, the more likely your friends are to get annoyed with you. I do post every blog on my accounts, but I don't post about it much more than that. When I first started blogging, I oversold myself to my friends and I instantly saw fewer comments, less likes, and some even deleted me. Using social media successfully is a delicate balance of posting enough, not posting too much, and delivering interesting content that isn't too sad or self-indulged. The best way I find to draw in readers is a combination of social media and Search Engine Optimization (or SEO).

One of my recent Twitter posts

For social media, I always post a link to my most recent blog on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, typically with a quote from my writing. On Twitter, I always make sure that I use hashtags for #dance, #ballet, #freelance, and/or #blog. This allows people that are interested in these topics to find my tweet, even if they don't follow me. Beyond that, I have each individual post linked on a separate LOFD fan page on facebook and on a board in Pinterest. The way my blog is set up, you can only see the most recent post at the top of the page. Most of my other posts are hidden on the sidebar or on other pages of my blog. Since I have spent so much time writing each post, I don't want them to disappear into the blogosphere only to be found when somebody searches a specific topic. On Pinterest, each blog post is pinned to the board like a post it. This makes it easy to scroll through individual pieces versus scrolling through entire pages of writing.

As for Search Engine Optimization, this is where things get a little trickier. I am still on a bit of a learning curve when it comes to SEO. But using blogger, I have a few tricks that I use to increase traffic to my website. SEO is essentially creating pathways to have search engines, like Google and Bing, move your site closer to the top when somebody searches a topic that may relate to your blog. In my posts, I try to find ways to insert links to articles and businesses that are related to my writings. Make sure that you are being honest to your writing with these links. Don't add a random link that has no relation to your work because it is popular. But adding links to other searchable subjects may have your blog showing up when somebody searches for a place, like the School of American Ballet. Also, be sure to add labels/keywords after you have finished your post. In Blogger, there is a sidebar with post settings that allows you to add labels to your content. During my editing process, I search for words in my writing that really stand out as important to the post or names/subjects that are highly searched. For instance, if I wrote a post that included a story about working with Christopher Wheeldon, I am surely going to include him in that list. The more searchable your blog is, the more likely you are to gather readers. And the higher the viewership, the longer the life of your blog.

At the end of the day, you may ask me why I spend so much time sitting at my computer having a conversation with my keyboard? I never thought of myself as a writer until recently. Obviously, the excitement of seeing the number of views on my content tick higher and higher contribute to my long stream of writings. But the reason that I continue blogging from week to week is because it gives me a platform to express my thoughts, views, and explorations to people that I don't even know. I can help somebody I've never met learn how to get a job or cope with shitty conditions in their workplace. I always tell people that criticize me for sharing so much about my personal and not-so-personal life online this. There are so many times in life that we feel alone, like we are experiencing something all by ourselves. Those of us that have a platform to share MUST do so for those people. At some point, somebody has experienced what I have along my journey through my career and life.  Sometimes, though, they don't realize that they weren't the only one to have ever experienced it. If putting a little too much of myself out there helps somebody else in their time of need, I'm more than happy to help. With all of this said, if you've got it in you, GET STARTED WRITING!

Don't be afraid to express yourself