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Tuesday, March 09, 2021
I Have No Desire to Produce a Performance, Live or Livestreamed, Until the Pandemic Is Over. I’ll Wait.
Dance Magazine: Friends, I'd like to deliver some news that might be challenging for you. As much as we have been trained to believe "the show must go on," I can assure you right now, it will be fine if it does not.
3 comments:
Alexa Janoschka
said...
I think that there are some very important messages for all creatives, not just dancers, in this article. THIS IS NOT A NORMAL YEAR, things are not normal, projects and productions are not normal, common expectations that we once have do not always work during this time AND SHOULD NOT BE EXPECTED. It is ok to say that we are not in the work when we are frankly... Not. In. The. Work. It is ok to shift gears and try new things without feeling the pressure of continuing with a goal we set months ago, a year ago, or years ago. Things change, pandemics (apparently) happen and you have to shift. You have to give yourself and others the grace and understanding that, collectively, we all don't know what we are doing. Everyone has struggled this past year, everyone has had to rethink what they are doing and why they are doing it. I don't know and I bet that majority of us reading this article also don't know. What I am focusing on is exploring new things that I am interested in and knowing that if theater (in whatever way it comes back) is what I am supposed to be doing will come back into my life. For now though I’m more interested in Football lol
I agree very much with the article. I feel like everyone seems to forget or ignores the fact that we are actually in a global pandemic, a time where thousands of people have died, millions more have gotten seriously ill. We no longer have the support of people in the same way before, I haven't hugged any of my friends in over a year at this point. Yet I feel as if we are expected to be doing more and more, especially by my school. We are expected to just pivot to become filmmakers doing jobs we never expected we would have to. I think that rest is so important in normal times as well, but especially during this time. People need the time to take care of themselves and process the world around them. The past year was the hardest year of my life and it isn't over yet. People should be treated with grace and understanding, not with pressure and force to create and achieve. This should be a time of rest.
Can we just pin this article to the doors of all of school leadership? Specifically, the part with the questions about why are we creating digital content? Megan specifically said at the start of the school year that we as a learning institution should care more about the process, not the production. I can’t help but think that philosophy runs entirely antithetical to a theater school doing film shoots with editing instead of just doing live captures. Whose education is being helped by what we are doing this semester? Other than maybe VMD, I can’t imagine it is in anyone’s education goals to learn how to use how to livestream or edit video. Are actors learning how to be better actors by having to learn to act for a six second take? Am I learning how to be a better TD by having to learn to build a flat alone because no one can be within 6 feet of me?
3 comments:
I think that there are some very important messages for all creatives, not just dancers, in this article. THIS IS NOT A NORMAL YEAR, things are not normal, projects and productions are not normal, common expectations that we once have do not always work during this time AND SHOULD NOT BE EXPECTED. It is ok to say that we are not in the work when we are frankly... Not. In. The. Work. It is ok to shift gears and try new things without feeling the pressure of continuing with a goal we set months ago, a year ago, or years ago. Things change, pandemics (apparently) happen and you have to shift. You have to give yourself and others the grace and understanding that, collectively, we all don't know what we are doing. Everyone has struggled this past year, everyone has had to rethink what they are doing and why they are doing it. I don't know and I bet that majority of us reading this article also don't know. What I am focusing on is exploring new things that I am interested in and knowing that if theater (in whatever way it comes back) is what I am supposed to be doing will come back into my life. For now though I’m more interested in Football lol
I agree very much with the article. I feel like everyone seems to forget or ignores the fact that we are actually in a global pandemic, a time where thousands of people have died, millions more have gotten seriously ill. We no longer have the support of people in the same way before, I haven't hugged any of my friends in over a year at this point. Yet I feel as if we are expected to be doing more and more, especially by my school. We are expected to just pivot to become filmmakers doing jobs we never expected we would have to. I think that rest is so important in normal times as well, but especially during this time. People need the time to take care of themselves and process the world around them. The past year was the hardest year of my life and it isn't over yet. People should be treated with grace and understanding, not with pressure and force to create and achieve. This should be a time of rest.
Can we just pin this article to the doors of all of school leadership? Specifically, the part with the questions about why are we creating digital content? Megan specifically said at the start of the school year that we as a learning institution should care more about the process, not the production. I can’t help but think that philosophy runs entirely antithetical to a theater school doing film shoots with editing instead of just doing live captures. Whose education is being helped by what we are doing this semester? Other than maybe VMD, I can’t imagine it is in anyone’s education goals to learn how to use how to livestream or edit video. Are actors learning how to be better actors by having to learn to act for a six second take? Am I learning how to be a better TD by having to learn to build a flat alone because no one can be within 6 feet of me?
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