Nachmo, Day 31+

I wrapped up the official Nachmo 2025 event by finishing choreography for At Sunset. That's not the last song of the show, but that does mean I officially choreographed twelve out of the sixteen songs during Nachmo proper; 39 minutes' worth of choreography out of the 54 total for this show.

I also managed to secure a dance space, at least for now. Tap dancing there is forbidden unless I lug in my portable tap floor (which, at my height squared, might be a misnomer), but it is a dance space where I can move around to music without breaking things (whether myself or important objects). I can at least start learning the choreography in soft shoes for the muscle memory.

I've submitted this piece to a festival that takes place in June. I don't really expect them to accept it, but I had set a goal for 2025 to submit choreography to at least two festivals. I don't need to get in, I just need to submit them. So I'm now 50% done that goal for the year. I'm at least putting my name out there, and at the moment, that is all I need to do. The rest is in God's hands, and I am genuinely at peace with that. I have done my job and I can move forward with the next thing.

This is going to be another dance year, I think. Since getting married, I seem to spend every other year focusing a lot on writing (mostly working on Kyrie), and then the opposite years focusing on choreography things. Even-numbered years are writing years, apparently, and odd-numbered years are dance years. I am perfectly okay with that. Last year there was a lot more overlap because I had actual choreography gigs, but I did a lot of work on Kyrie in the first 7-8 months of 2024, and that was really where my heart was for a lot of the year. This year I have at least four dance films I want to make, some of them larger projects like this one.

Last week, the musical theatre production I was working on opened, which got a huge commitment (and a lot of drama/emotional stress) off of my plate. It looks good (as I knew it would), and I learned a LOT about managing expectations within the production team. I do have an assistant choreographer gig lined up for a different musical theatre show in a few months, so hopefully I can apply what I've learned.

I'm still here.

 

I'm still here, and I'm still doing this.

Nachmo, Day 20 - Process Shift (The Tech I'm Using)

I've been slowly changing how I write choreography throughout the month.

 

Since 2012, I've written all my dances out on lined looseleaf first, then either transcribed them into Benesh Movement Notation (ballet/jazz) or typed them into Pages (tap dances).

This month though, I started using my Rocketbook erasable notebook. Since it's set up to scan the pages directly to my email, that way I could continue writing by hand like normal, and then immediately have no-effort digitization AND email backup in one fell swoop. And it does work well. But the Rocketbook has limited pages and I was choreographing faster than I was uploading/backing up.

 

I sort of accidentally fell into this habit of jotting down choreography notes in the Notion app on my phone whenever I didn't have the Rocketbook on me. Then I'd continue working on the notes in Notion on my laptop, with the iTunes/'Music' miniplayer in the corner.

Two days ago, I discovered that if you hover the cursor over the miniplayer and scroll, you can scrub through the song without having to click back and forth between Notion and iTunes.

That absolutely changed the game.

Now I can keep the cursor in one place (hovering over the scrub bar) and replay 8 counts to my heart's content, while simultaneously typing notes without the extra hassle (yes, I know exactly how 'first world problems' this sounds) of clicking back and forth between the two (and forgetting which one was selected before starting to type). This means I'm losing my train of thought WAY less, and the fact that I'm doing a show on my lived experience with memory loss should tell you how frustratingly easy it is to lose my train of thought... and how difficult it is to find my train of thought again once I've lost it.

This tiny change has launched me into creative hyperspeed. I'd already half-taught my devices not to autocorrect my tap dance shorthand so I'm not facing that friction much. I'm also not sweating the specific counts as much as usual (mostly for the sake of doing a lot of output during Nachmo proper), replacing specific subdivisions with timestamps because those are MUCH easier to find when you're dealing with jazz music. I just don't have the brain space or energy to try to find the 1 and hold a very fleeting idea in my head long enough to figure out which sixteenth count I'm starting the step on while following the saxophone melody. I'm NaNoWriMo-ing this thing. Get it in writing and figure out the pacing later. I've always let the music's own dynamics and rhythms inspire me, so I'm hoping with the help of the timestamps I'll be able to hear what I was thinking later.

As far as stats, so far today I've done almost three minutes' worth of choreography. I've just finished the song I was on, and that officially brings me to the 30-minute mark of the show -- or, my goal for Nachmo 2025. Obviously, we're going to keep going and see how far we get. Maybe choreographing the entire 54-minute show in a month isn't entirely out of reach after all. I hadn't planned to speedrun creation and production the way I did with Sottovoce, and I think it might be harder to do such a thing this time. The things that made Sottovoce so unconventional for me were the things that made it forgiving... I was suffering with memory loss even then, but the lack of set music meant I could hide the blank spots in editing a little bit (that's why the editing in Sottovoce is so janky. Almost every single cut in that film is covering a 2-3 minute mental blank). Here, I am working with set music, and while that may make it easier to memorise, that will mean I actually have to know the choreography, at tempo... all 54 minutes of it.

I do notice that letting my work breathe/not choreographing at the absolute cutting edge of my ability (as of 2019) means I cover more musical ground a lot faster, and hopefully it'll be easier for my broken brain to actually learn it. I'm only hoping it's not too boring for the audience.

Nachmo, Day 19 - Unreality

It's been tough.

 

Things has escalated with the other show. I've been accused of being out of touch with reality and was told I have done nothing for the show. The exact words were: 'calling you a choreographer is generous given how little you've done.' While it is true that I was quite sick for a long period of time and the assistant choreographer had to take on a lot of extra work as a result, I didn't do nothing. But here we are, I guess. Once again I've busted my butt on something I loved and wanted very badly only to be told I wasn't even trying. Why do I keep trying at all if nobody can tell anyway?

 

Of course, this bleeds into my solo choreography work. I'm reminded now why I consistently stop short at asking others to perform my pieces. I'm reminded that none of those glorious 16-dancer pieces I've choreographed in the past will ever see the light of day, because I'm too selfish and lazy and inflexible (that's another one I've heard before) and socially inept and broken to work with other people. I am apparently only capable of choreographing solos for myself.

I tried advocating for myself like my industry friends suggested, but they only doubled down. Inflexible. Lazy. Demanding. Selfish. Out of touch. You don't deserve to be called a choreographer.

I'm trying to use this feeling of rejection and inadequacy to inform the work I'm doing on Smaller, but it's hard to feel that the choreography for Smaller is any good. After all, my work isn't even good enough for community theatre. How can I make a whole show about memory loss with no studio space to bring it to life and (apparently) no business calling myself a choreographer in the first place?

Ten years ago this would have fueled my resolve. I would have sworn to prove myself.

But I've spent those ten years proving myself, and it hasn't made the smallest speck of difference.

Back to the show. I finished the last song of Act I last night. I'm now just over 26 minutes of completed choreography -- only four minutes away from my goal for the month, with 12 days to go. I think choreographing the full 54 minutes of the show in 31 days is still a tall order, but I might be able to get somewhat close.

 

As long as nobody else comes at me telling me what a failure and a fraud I am.

I really don't know how much longer I can -- or should -- keep trying.

Nachmo, Day 15 - Unwanted And Fraudulent

Today basically marks the halfway point of Nachmo. I started today with 15 minutes of choreography completed -- 50% of my January goal of 30 minutes, and 27% of the total show. So we are on pace. I was hoping to come out of January ahead, but I suppose there is still time to do that.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about how the show is shaping up. In my quest to not be too fancy, I feel like I'm being overly repetitive. I'm almost sure this show is going to bore the audiences to tears, if they don't walk out mid-show. Tap dance requires striking such a fine balance between repetition and novelty, and I don't think I'm experienced enough to know where that line is. It's something I'm having to think about a lot in this show... after all, it's about memory loss. How can you show memory loss unless you have a firm, clearly established motif? Only once it's established can I break it effectively. But the more I repeat it, the more my brain screams at me about how lazy and unoriginal I am.

It doesn't help that one of my theatre choreography projects is suffering from some serious issues with the cast -- specifically, they don't like my choreography (even though the production team loves it), and will stop at absolutely nothing to sabotage the choreography, turn the directors against me, and disrespect me and my hard work.

Part of the rift boils down to me not having access to a studio space. And I'm also really feeling the lack of a studio space in this personal Nachmo project. I am currently laid off. I absolutely cannot afford $40 an hour (plus GST) just to noodle around on some pet project of mine -- although such noodling would definitely make said pet project stronger. What kind of choreographer doesn't have a studio? It's like meeting a painter with no canvases. Of course you're not going to take them seriously. And people are not taking me seriously. This is also the second time in two years that I have had the dancer(s) dislike my work so passionately that they actively ruined it just to avoid doing the thing I choreographed. I don't mind collaboration, but collaboration MUST go both ways, and both parties MUST consent. I did not consent in either case.

This is tearing my already-fragile self-confidence to shreds. I took this gig to get experience, and the only experience I'm getting is disrespect and pain. And I have nowhere to put this pain, as my husband refuses to let me vent (because it's 'too negative'... and yes, of course I married someone whose top complaint about me is my pet peeve phrase, because why wouldn't I sabotage myself like that?), and it's 'improper' to air it publicly, especially since I'm starting out and I need to establish a good name for myself.

Sometimes it really feels as if it's a crime to expect common decency.

 

Update: It looks like I'm going to be officially wrapping up Day 15 with 18 minutes of choreography completed. Did all of Cimarron while watching the hockey game and I did the dishes to boot.

Of course, somebody will still find some excuse to call me lazy.

Nachmo, Day 10 - Breathing And Reruns

Rehearsals have officially started for my next theatre show, and we're officially choreographing this show out of order.

Also, yesterday, I hit the 10-minute mark, as in ten total minutes of music choreographed. This is on pace for my stated goal of 30 minutes of choreography during the challenge proper. (The show is actually 54 minutes long, but I'm trying to be reasonable about my expectations for a 31-day challenge.) (Obviously I am going to try to exceed thirty minutes, but I will be happy with thirty if I don't manage any more than that.)

The mouse incident did have me lagging behind a bit, but yesterday I went on a tear and choreographed over two minutes' worth of material. Today so far I've done nearly another minute, but I know where I want to go from there so I should be able to knock out a bit more tonight. I might need the buffer for this weekend, as I have a meeting for a potential choreography gig, dinner with the in-laws, and a long rehearsal with my remote choreography gig.

As for the show itself, I choreographed the first two pieces, then skipped ahead due to overwhelm and did the sixth song. I'm now on the seventh song, and that will take us into the intermission.

Things are starting to take shape a bit -- I've got a couple of motifs, and am trying not to worry too much that I'm grossly overusing them. I'm trying very hard to let the piece breathe a little bit more and not try to stuff tricks and overly complex rhythm changes into EVERY SINGLE SUBDIVISION of the music. That can be impressive, but my pre-pandemic work especially suffers from too much razzle dazzle rather than too little. I hate how slow and boring modern dance is, so I overcompensate by overstuffing the music with a volley of sounds like gunshots on a battlefield. I am trying to recognise this when it happens and pull back on the reins, just a little tiny bit. (I'm hoping this will also 1. be easier on my memory once it's time to learn it, and 2. communicate the whole 'memory loss' theme a bit more.)

I'm really proud of how the playlist turned out. Honestly, I stuck in a couple of early-'90s smooth jazz songs I had, then searched 'melancholy vapourwave' on YouTube. I got exactly two videos as a result, but both videos supplied me with enough music to populate the rest of the playlist. As I listened to those YouTube mixes, I slotted each contender into a rough song order on my Notion tab for the show. When my final paycheque came in on the 30th, I bought the songs and stuck them in the playlist. I listened to the playlist exactly once through, on the 31st. I think I made two or three swaps, but the song order is actually largely the same as originally written down on the fly. The transitions are really smooth, and the 'vibe' throughout the whole show flows and shifts really well (other than the second song, as discussed in a previous Nachmo update). That's incredible, considering I heard some of these songs exactly twice in my entire life before the first of January. (Usually my playlists are full of songs that I have known for years, if not decades, that I am intimately familiar with and could sing to you, note-for-note, in their entirety.)

 

This music takes me back to a simpler time. And one of the biggest things about memory loss that surprised me was how much my brain simply played 'reruns' of memories of simpler times -- memories I hadn't even thought about in decades. My brain played reruns of every memory I ever had at my grandparents' old house in the country (I was not quite five years old when they moved into town), long-forgotten moments in the trailer we lived in when I was a child, and many hours of 2021-2023 slipped past me as my brain kept me sitting in the sunlight in my old pink bedroom (which by then no longer existed as mine, or as pink, for that matter). I couldn't really think any new thoughts -- there were none to think, I couldn't hold onto the concepts long enough to match them together into a new thought -- so my mind just dumped me into my past, as vivid as if I was still there. I completely understand now why old people talk so much about the old days -- as far as we're concerned, we are still living there, still in 1959 or 1982 or 1997, still living in those fleeting moments before everything changed, before wi-fi, before iPhones, before the pandemic, before all the loss, before freaking hipster music.

 

It was a comfort at times to live in the golden years again, but it also stopped me from engaging with the present, from making new works and new friends. I would wake up from driving my old Pontiac Montana down the highway in 2012 and find myself in a year I didn't know in a world I didn't recognise with people I'd never met.

Anyway, that's part of the experience I'm trying to capture in the show, especially as we move into the second act -- that disconnect between physical reality and our mind's reality, and how we don't even know -- or can't control -- that it's happening.

Nachmo, Day 7 - Two Deep

I've officially finished the first two songs for the show. I'm really proud of the first one. The second... not so much. My brain was very much elsewhere (we discovered a mouse running around our apartment on day 3 and although we haven't seen or heard it since then, we have no proof that it's actually dead or gone and apparently sometime in the past four years my dislike has become a phobia so I'm still VERY jumpy).

 

I may end up cutting the second song from the show entirely. I still have plenty of music, and the song is extremely repetitive, plus I'm not proud of the choreography. It's complete, so I can always slot it back in if I do end up taking it out. I haven't actually taken it out yet, but it's definitely on the chopping block.

 

The next song intimidates me, primarily because of its sheer length. It's just less than five minutes, which I have absolutely done before, but it just feels different somehow. Maybe because it's been so long since I choreographed anything? Maybe because there are no lyrics, and till now 98% of my choreography has been to music with lyrics? Maybe because my self-confidence is still shot from college (read: the prof with no emotional integrity who had absolutely zero business being a performing arts professor)? Maybe because last time I tap danced was when I filmed Inside Of You in October 2023 and am TERRIFIED that I have forgotten all the knowledge I had managed to scrape together about tap dance? All of the above?

 

This is also the song I have known the longest out of all the songs on this list. This shouldn't be this hard. Should I embrace the difficulty? I'm willing to do that but I don't know how. The story of my life. All those times I would go into that gutless professor's office and ask how. How do I 'be more vulnerable' (his main demand of me... me, who was losing friends by the dozen because I was 'too personal')? How do I sing better? How do I improve as a performer? How do I get a role, any role -- especially when he has done nothing but tell me I'm such a talented performer?

 

Despite years of trying to break free from his tyranny, I'm here nearly six years later, still trying to break out from under his thumb. I haven't spoken to the man since 2019. I know, on some distant intellectual level, that he had to be at least somewhat inaccurate in how he viewed me. But I still can't get out from under his shadow.

 

On one hand, it's because my in-laws replaced him within a year of me breaking free. But I've seen this before now, and I know not to buy any of their crap. It's a lot easier somehow to brush off my in-laws' opinions than the opinions of the man who told me in no uncertain terms that he held my future in his hands and never quite artistically mentored me in the way that I still wish I could be. I learned from that professor, and I alienated my in-laws before they could get close to me. But that doesn't help that 20-year-old kid who went to college with a heart full of joy and a head full of dreams and handed them over to the powers-that-be and watched those powers repeatedly dash her contributions against the rocks.

This is exactly the emotional place I probably should be at later in the piece -- once the world starts caving in around the protagonist. Maybe what I really need to do is skip to the end and work backwards. I've been listening to the show playlist as I've been writing this and the darker songs are standing out to me.

Worth a try, I suppose.

Nachmo, Day 2 - Joy

Yesterday I choreographed some 44 measures (in 4/4 time, so like 146 counts?). Didn't finish the song, but got just past halfway. And you what? I am absolutely happy with a minute and a half done on the first day, especially in tap dance (it's a lot easier to make ballet take up a lot of time than tap).

 

I can't even explain HOW FREAKING EXCITED I am for this year's choreography. I don't think I have ever been excited for Nachmo proper (M and I used to do a National Choreography Month -- which we dubbed NaChoreoMo -- in May every year, and I usually got way more hyped for that, as I was usually not dying of pneumonia at that time of year).

I'm excited about the show itself, for sure, but I'm also just really excited to be taking part in a creative challenge again. I haven't done one since NaNoWriMo 2023, and that one was really difficult/generally not-fun for a number of reasons.

I guess I forgot how much I love creative challenges, especially in a medium I'm currently 'feeling.' I was so high on life yesterday as I started this project that I wondered if that was what mania feels like. (No doubt my college professor would still have said I was being 'too sad.' But *beep* him. He has no emotional integrity, and you can't be a good artist without emotional integrity.)

 

Tonight I finished the first song of the show, and for the first time since 31 December 2022, I was able to actually add a song to my 'Completed Choreography' playlist (Sottovoce didn't use music, and I don't have the music for the two theatre shows I did in my iTunes library because both companies sent the music through ROCS ShowReady).

For trivia purposes... the playlist alone is now 130 songs, 8 hours and 10 minutes long. That's a lot of choreography, and that doesn't even include Sottovoce (24 minutes) and the theatre musicals. I could start the playlist when I arrive for my day job in the morning, and I still wouldn't reach the end of the playlist before it's time to clock out. That's so much music. That's so much choreography. I've accomplished so much, and I honestly feel like I'm just getting started.

I remember in February 2012 when I swore I would finish choreographing a dance to prove my mother wrong (about how I didn't want to choreograph 'bad enough'), and the elation I felt when I finally finished that piece (Sing Your Freedom) on 10 April. Look how far I've come. I just choreographed a tap dance in two days. At the time I choreographed Sing Your Freedom, I didn't even know how to tap dance.

I'm just so excited that I still get to do this. I'm so happy this is still a part of my life.

Nachmo, Day 1 - Motif

National Choreography Month, Day 1, early afternoon.

 

We're off to a great start. Already 64 counts down, and I believe this is going to be the motif that repeats throughout the show, so in reality this is a HUGE investment as it will eat up chunks of 64 counts throughout the show. It's a fun, swingy motif with lots of alteration potential, and it's not like something I would 'usually' do (and there are few things I hate more than repeating my choreographic self without a very good reason).

My soft goal for today is to finish the first song. That initial 64 counts was nearly 40 seconds, and the song is only 2:48. It'll be a stretch, but it is definitely possible. The motif gives me a good energy to work with and is giving me a lot of momentum. This is the most excited for Nachmo I think I've ever been (I also think this is the first year EVER that I have not had bronchitis at the start of the event, so that is definitely also helping morale).

 

If I have enough free time (and motivation) this year, I would also like to create my own list of Nachmo prompts, as the ones they typically do on their social media/website lean HEAVILY toward random, improv-based modern dance, and that is basically the antithesis of everything I stand for in my own choreography. But we'll see. The actual choreography comes first.

Onward and upward!

Choreography Month? Maybe?

Remember National Choreography Month? Yeah, that used to be a much bigger thing around here.

 

I didn't participate in 2024, despite using Nachmo 2023 to create Sottovoce. This year, I just didn't have any ideas. Even through the rest of this year, following Nachmo, I just... didn't have any ideas. Or at least, not anything that felt ready to actively develop. Lots of things were simmering on the back burner, but nothing was ready. Plus, there were also those two theatre musical productions I choreographed that kind of took my time and energy away from choreographing original works. It was a nice stopgap -- it kept the creative juices flowing and got me some in-studio, live experience (as well as some connections and filled some résumé slots), but I miss working with some of my favourite music instead of having the music all picked for me.

So here are a couple of contenders for Nachmo 2025.

1. Stop Time

This has been in the works for... probably since I finished Sottovoce. The music is basically set, and I have a story arc sketched out. It's mostly music from the 2008-2010 era, and the story is an alternative reality version of the car accident I was in in 2010 (so, the exact same car accident, but with a different outcome). In other words... I have literally everything in place for this except actual dance steps. Which, you know, is kind of the whole point of choreographing things.

 

2. Three Voices

This is a more recent idea that I got from watching oscilloscope videos of SID chip music on YouTube (as one does). The SID chip, for those who don't know, is the sound chip for the Commodore 64 computer, and it had three voices (instrument tracks), plus a noise track. With these three voices, some composers rose up to make incredible sounding music, mostly as video game soundtracks. And I want to have three tap dancers, each following one of the SID chip voices in the music.

I also want to try this with all three dances doing exactly the same choreography as above... but a capella. I think it would be a fun experiment to see how closely it resembles the actual song, especially over three percussion lines with only dynamics and shading to shape the sound.

3. Smaller

This is a project that I've been wanting to do since at least 2021, when my memory issues started. I've wanted to do a show about memory loss since then, but could never quite figure out how to structure it. For a long time I thought I might use the music of Gavin Luke for this, but I could never find the right fit. It felt too modern-y, and the world has enough modern dance in it.

I'm embarrassed to say it took months between me discovering vapourwave and me realising it's the perfect vehicle for a concept like this. This project is off the back burner again since I made that musical connection, and right now this is the one I'm hyperfocusing on.

So that's where my dance brain is at right now. I'm wanting to stretch out and make bigger projects. Since making Sottovoce, the one-song-and-done pieces feel too small. Don't get me wrong, I still plan on developing some of those into dance films, but I'm feeling a pull to creating 'shows,' things with... maybe not a plot, per se, but some level of narrative or dramatic arc.

Creative Residency Plans (Or: The 2025 Goalpost)

I've been laid off my day job.

 

Since my body (and my mental health) can't handle the rigours of fast food, I will not be going back, even temporarily.

My employers anticipate they will call me back in late March/early April. This gives me just over three months to sit at home and think about life, for the first time since I graduated college.

I have a couple of side hustle ideas. Neither of them will likely replace a full-time income, but if they work out, they'll at least slow the financial bleeding.

That said, this is now a glorious opportunity to work on all those creative projects I keep saying I don't have time for. I've been thinking about my goals for 2025, and I want to front-load the year either hitting those goals or at least getting myself well set up to hit them later in the year (keeping in mind that the summer months from Hell in this town are usually pretty uninspired and dormant seasons for me).

I am trying to frame this as an artistic residency sponsored by God. (And for the record, God may work through other people or through my own efforts.)

So without further ado, here are the goals for 2025!

DANCE

- At least attempt teaching two (or more) dance sessions.

- Make two dance videos this year.

I made this goal in 2023 and got it. Made the same goal in 2024 and didn't even manage one.

- Create a long-form dance work.

The plan is to use Nachmo/National Choreography Month for this (post with more details forthcoming).

- Submit to at least two dance/choreography festivals.

Notice I said 'submit,' not 'appear in.' While obviously I would love to actually present work, I can only control how many festivals I apply to, not how many actually present my work. I always consciously choose goals that I personally can control -- that way if they don't happen, it's on me, and I'm not driving myself crazy trying to check off two 'presentations,' when that facet is out of my control. I want to focus on doing the work and showing up every day and leaving everything I can't control to God. If I submit to two festivals, I will have done my due diligence, and whether or not my work is accepted, I will consider myself happy with the fact that I put my name out there.

- Secure a practice studio.

I have two potential options at the moment. I really just need to gather my courage and send a couple of emails.

WRITING

- Write some short stories/poetry to submit.

Could be tricky, as I have been in a writing dry spell for YEARS at this point.

- Finish the current Kyrie rewrite.

 

 

PERSONAL GROWTH

 

- Go for a walk (or some kind of exercise) at least three times a week.

This is a goal my husband and I have set together.

 

- Become more comfortable with using that Instant Pot that has been sitting on the shelf literally since our wedding.

This is another goal for both my husband and I.

- Read more.

I've got probably like 70 books in my Kobo wish list, and even a few that I've already purchased that I haven't read yet. I got a Kobo gift card for Christmas, so time to put it to use (as soon as I figure out which Michael Card book I want).

I did make this goal last year and read about six books, which is definitely more than I've read since graduating college.

- More Bible reading and prayer.

I made this goal last year as well and I managed to be fairly consistent until about August.

FINANCIAL

- Save at least $500 for a house.

- Get in contact with at least two people about selling my crocheted items.

- Run at least two dance class sessions.

- Promote my Ko-fi page on social media somewhere at least once a month.

- Apply to at least one job per week.

The hardest thing here will be finding jobs to apply to that 1. are within like 200 km of where I live, 2. pay enough money to cover gas for my vehicle at the bare minimum, 3. won't re-injure my back or my ankle, and 4. won't make me want to drive off a cliff.

It's still early in the pre-New Year week, so I might still tweak these. But this is at least my starting point, and since I'm already off work, I guess the creative residency starts now.

First Quarter Review

It's the end of March... the end of the first quarter of 2023. Already it's been a great year in terms of goals and stepping forward into my performing artist dreams.

Some highlights...

- Participated in Nachmo (National Choreography Month) in January.

- Created an entire choreographic work/dance film from scratch in 58 days.

- Was one of only eight choreographers accepted to show their work in the Nachmo Online Film Festival.

- Released my first-ever long-form dance work to the public.

- Was invited to audition for a speaking role in one of the largest and most recognisable productions in Canada.

- Passed an exam at work, resulting in me getting a new role with more responsibilities.

- Went to a tap dance festival (met Dianne Walker and Jessie Sawyers for the first time).

- Got my second-ever dance commission project.

- Got to improv live again.

I have gotten more opportunities and education in the past three months than I did in my entire $80,000 college degree. This makes me both sad (about the time and money I wasted) and hopeful (that I am capable of doing this myself no matter what anybody else says).

Now for the hard part... trying not to coast.

Nachmo, Continued

On 28 February, I released my first long-form dance work.

This fulfils a LOT of goals I had -- both long-term and short-term ones.

Are there things I wish I did different? Absolutely. But is this a big milestone? Yes. This is something seventeen-year-old Kate would have absolutely drooled over.

On 28 February, I fulfilled a promise I made to my younger self. Everybody else let her down, but I did not.

Despite everybody who said I would never be, and especially despite everybody who went out of their way to sabotage me, I am a choreographer. I am here, and I am not going away. I went to the edge of the dream, and I did not turn away.

Presenting Sottovoce.

Nachmo, Day 31 - A Show Complete

I just finished choreographing the final dance number of the show.

It’s very odd choreographing a capella. It’s hard to know when you’re done. Most of my pieces for Act I felt too short, so I tried to make Act II longer, to settle into the emotions more. This final piece especially was difficult, as I’m trying to blow the tiny spark of defiance inside me into a roaring flame in one dance number. I’ve become so used to hiding that spark that it was hard to find it for this piece — I’m not entirely sure I succeeded, but I felt a natural end so I wrapped it up. I didn’t want to drag it out too long either.

Submissions for the Nachmo online film festival open up tomorrow. I choreographed this piece with the express purpose of submitting it to that festival. And if it doesn’t get selected in the lottery, I’m releasing it on YouTube. Either way it will be released to the public by the end of February. I am still terrified. I’m not quite halfway done memorizing it. I have no idea if I’ve communicated the story clearly. I’m trying very hard not to think of the reception from the less supportive extended family and college contacts.

But no matter the reception, the fact is, I choreographed an entire long-form dance show in 31 days. I wanted to challenge myself, and I have. I have worked a capella — something I have never, ever done before — for a whole month. I have finished choreography for an entire show — something I have attempted several times but never completed.

I also made a goal for myself to create and stage a full-length dance show before I turn thirty. With this month of focused choreography, that goal is now within reach.

All I have to do is outrun the fear for one more month.

Nachmo, Day 29 - Pressure

I’ve officially booked a filming venue.

We shoot on 6 February at stupid early o’clock.

I have so much memorising to do.

Nachmo, Day 23 - Memorising

At the moment, I have just started choreographing the final number of the show. Everything else is fully choreographed.

But the biggest news is that I have the first two and a half pieces of the show fully memorised.

I won't rehash all my psychoanalysing, read the last two posts for that. But what seems to have been the breakthrough for me so far is telling myself that memorising is not a shameful thing and I deserve to give memorising just as much time and care and attention as actually choreographing. Somehow that shifted my mindset. It was almost as if I had to give myself permission to memorise.

It's still hard, but I'm dreading it less. Now that I've fully memorised two pieces and am into a third, I have the tiniest bit of momentum on my side too. I have something to throw back at the monster within when it screams at me that I'll never be able to do this -- oh yeah? Well I already have -- twice. While that doesn't silence the monster, it does muffle it for a few minutes at least -- enough to review the choreography to reassure myself that yes, I do in fact know it.

I feel a lot better about filming this show in roughly two weeks than I did even a few days ago.

Next stop on the fear train? Contacting people about renting their venue for filming.

Nachmo, Day 16 - More Fear

So, uh... the fear didn't go away after one week. In fact, we are minutes away from closing out Week Two and I'm still just as afraid -- if not more so -- than I was before.

The fear has shifted, though. I am no longer afraid that I will not be able to finish choreographing. I am now afraid that I won't be able to learn the choreography.

On one hand, this is silly. I used to be in (read: memorise) three shows simultaneously. As soon as one would end, I'd roll in another. I have memorised entire pieces in a single afternoon multiple times. My entire Instagram page used to be basically me performing stuff I'd only memorised ten minutes earlier. There's no reason for me not to be able to do this.

But on the other hand, it's been nearly three years since I was in the middle of three simultaneous shows. I have been diagnosed with ADHD since then. I went through one of the worst periods of my personal life and am missing literally two years of memories from that time -- and because I'm only just coming out of it, a lot of conversations I have now still include the other person saying, 'don't you remember...?' Which, of course, I don't. Hearing, 'don't you remember?' multiple times every day does not exactly instill confidence in one's abilities to remember any new information.

This is silly, I tell myself. This is film. You can cut and piece together as much as you need to.

But, whispers the fear, you having to re-memorise everything right before you shoot it will waste time -- and dollars -- on set. You need to get in, shoot everything in one, maybe two takes, and get out. Your sound, light, and camera people are not going to sit around forever for free while you dilly dally about memorising stuff that you should have had memorised weeks before.

And I don't have an answer for that.

This is exactly where I'm stuck with my other dance film. Choreographing the thing is zero problem. Actually filming it with any amount of confidence is a much different story.

Your stupid sparse sound design is going to strangle you, the fear says. You're taking away the one thing that could possibly help you.

Fear doesn't like to hear that if there's little to no music, nobody will notice if I missed a phrase anyway because the music won't betray me.

But you'll know, it says. You'll know.

I'm just so tired.

I'm tired of having to fight through this voice every single minute of every single day. Memory loss is hell. I can see why depression is so high among dementia and Alzheimer's patients: memory loss -- and how people treat you when you have it -- strips away every single ounce of confidence you might have ever possessed. When you tell people you forgot, they take it personally -- 'if you really cared, you would have remembered.' And once they get that thought in their heads, there is literally nothing in the world that will ever convince them that you really did care about the thing you were supposed to remember. And then they decide that you just don't care about anything, including them, and they abandon you. There are no 'correct' words for the memory-loss patient to say that will make the other person understand that it wasn't intentional. Those words simply don't exist. So we get cut off by our friends and family, one by one. By the time the memory loss is stopped or slowed, it's too late: everybody's already gone, and they're not coming back.

And as I know all too well, the fear of abandonment is crushing.

Nachmo, Day 4 - Fear

It is Day 4 of National Choreography Month, and Day 368 of my personal 400 day choreography challenge.

My goal for this month is to choreograph, film, and edit a full-length dance work and submit it to the Nachmo Film Festival in February. Admittedly I'm stretching the definition of 'full-length,' as the show will probably clock in between 30 and 45 minutes, but it will still be the longest single work I've ever done.

I was really feeling the need to do something new and different this year. I've been doing 'choreograph 3-5 songs in a month' for some 8-10 years now, plus I just choreographed 24 pieces in 2022. I wanted a challenge, and decided that a full one-woman show (in the form of a dance film since I live in an artistic wasteland) would be a good challenge for me. I have filmed, edited, and released (previously choreographed) dance films in less than two weeks before, but the longest of those was less than five minutes.

I'm also creating my own sound design for this. Since I want this piece to be my first 'official' semi-professional piece, the last thing I want is to get in hot water for copyright infringement. Given the short production timeline, I figured my time would be better spent creating my own soundtrack rather than trying to track down copyright holders and get permission with so little notice. It also gives me the freedom to do what I want with this piece from a dance perspective -- I'm going to be blending dance styles a lot, and cutting between recorded music to fit the different styles will be jarring and/or inorganic.

This choice to create my own sound design has also lent me my theme for this piece -- all the different ways we communicate without using spoken words. I do have scraps of notes on this theme in my journals and notebooks going back to 2016, so this has been percolating for a while, but I really only started developing the concept last month.

I'm not far enough into this for the fear to have gone away yet. I am TERRIFIED. I'm terrified this show won't flow well. I'm terrified that my in-laws will use this show as another excuse to bully me. I'm terrified that I'm too close to it and won't clean/edit it well. I'm terrified that my very-beginner body percussion passages will be a disgrace to the art form. I'm terrified that I'll get pigeonholed as an artist into this very avant-garde piece that really is a departure from who I generally am as a choreographer. I'm terrified my sound design will be clunky and/or read as 'too cutesy' or too 'manufactured.' I'm terrified that the show will be long and boring and repetitive -- especially since it's going to be kind of a thinking person's show, not easily accessible for the mainstream.

But at the same time -- I've been stuck in a 'choreograph a random song' rut for years and have been long yearning to do something bigger, different, more challenging. I've been wanting to choreograph my own show for over a decade. Fifteen-year-old Kate would have loved to do something like this. If this turns out rather decent, it's a really good 'serious' start for a portfolio, plus it shows everybody who said I couldn't or that I didn't want this bad enough that actually, they're wrong and I can do this and they were wrong about me. This also proves to myself that despite being in an artistic wasteland, I am resourceful and -- dare I say -- skilled enough to create the biggest work of my life. If I can do a work like this here, I can do anything anywhere. I think I need to convince myself of this more than anybody else.

This morning I've been thinking a lot about the words of Czeslaw Milosz as quoted in the liner notes of Daniel Amos' Vox Humana album: 'No-one puts words on paper or paint on canvas doubting. If one doubts, one does so five minutes later...'

I'm trying to not doubt. I'm trying to focus on what a cool concept it is. I'm trying to focus on how much I've wanted to do something like this and how exciting it is to finally be doing it. All I've got to do is press through the fear for the next week or so -- long enough to build up so much momentum and excitement at what's developing that I can silence the fear.

Tune in next time...

Day 31 - National Choreography Month

My unofficial goal going into the month was three pieces, all for one specific show. I also intended to use Nachmo to get a head start on my personal goal of fourteen completed pieces this year.

Last night I finished off the third dance of the month, thereby achieving both of my goals. I choreographed every single day this month and I intend to keep that momentum going for the rest of the year (haven't decided yet if I'm going to take November off or not). Two of those pieces were ballet solos and one was a tap duet (it's a show with only two characters, and they don't share the stage often).

I'm perhaps most proud of the first one. It's one that's been incubating for at least a year now, so I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. I was absolutely chomping at the bit to start it on the first, and I think that's definitely the strongest piece I did this month. The second one I felt was not bad, perhaps a little slow (it was a slower song to try to do a tap piece to), but I think it helped me develop some characterisation. I meant for it to be a light and fun piece, so I deliberately tried to avoid doing too many tricks (a very bad habit of mine). The third one was kind of an 'oh crap, I finished the last piece and don't know what to do now' piece. It's got potential, but I'll have to take a break and revisit it before I'll know if I'm truly happy with it. That piece felt the most 'made-up' and random out of the three, which makes me think it'll probably be the least strong piece thematically (though I did borrow a couple of elements from the first song for continuity, seeing as they're both supposed to be in the same show. It won't save the piece if it's crap, but at least I attempted to be more intentional about what I was doing).

I wasn't able to get into the studio at all, and only managed one tap dance practice at my in-laws, so I wasn't able to post much footage, but that was weirdly okay with me. This is a show I'm very seriously wanting to produce so I'm deliberately keeping it close to my chest for now -- no spoilers.

My goal going forward is to continue to choreograph every day, as well as to finish out 2022 with fourteen (or more) new pieces. Three down, eleven more to go. That's one per month for the rest of the year.  I'm now at 110 pieces choreographed in the past nine years and eight months, and I'm on pace to hit 114 by the ten-year mark. Maybe I'll try to hit 115 by then. If I continue choreographing half a verse or so every day as I have been doing this month, that shouldn't be too difficult.

Day 16 - National Choreography Month

Having the bullet journal has actually helped me with this year's challenge. It creates a better environment to think about and set specific, concrete daily goals... something I have done only occasionally before this month. (The habit tracker is also a good motivator.)

Nachmo is harder than NaNoWriMo because in Nachmo there's no specific end goal. NaNoWriMo has 50k, Nachmo has... 'the experience.' Which is all well and good, but 'experience' doesn't necessarily encourage one to slog through the tough bits to a quantifiable accomplishment. In years past I would attempt to choreograph a certain number of songs or number of minutes, but choreographing is a lot more fluid than writing. There's no specific unit of measurement. Writing has individual words, dance has... pliés? steps? pointed feet? How do you measure a dance? Time is the closest you get, and even then, time is better for measuring the finished product. Thirty seconds of a solo can take an hour or so to choreograph. But the same thirty seconds for a group of twelve can take several eight-hour days.

All that to say, I don't have a monthly goal. I would like to finish three pieces, but that's not as hard and fast as my daily goals. So far, those have mostly looked like 'choreograph first verse/third chorus/bridge.' Choreographing chunks that size seems to be large enough to trigger some adrenaline, but it still doable, and it moves the piece along at a good pace so it feels like I'm making progress.

I'm keeping the same schedule as I did during NaNoWriMo -- work out a couple phrases over breakfast before work, then do another couple of eight counts during my lunch break. This usually gets me pretty close to my daily goal, and it's a great way to 1. make better use of time that would otherwise be spent scrolling Facebook, and 2. fit my dreams into the nooks and crannies of my life, since it appears I may never again have whole blocks of uninterrupted time to myself.

I've finished one piece so far, and I'm approaching the halfway point of the second one. For both of them, I've found myself choreographing the end before the beginning or at least before the middle. It currently feels like that's helping me with my structure and pacing (whether that's how it actually looks on stage remains to be seen).

I'm starting to focus a lot more on making a cohesive structure with themes, motifs, and more intentional dynamics, and while it makes my brain hurt sometimes and leaves me more vulnerable to self-doubt (and therefore self-loathing), I also recognise that I need to focus on that if I want to make something that 1. draws the viewer in, and 2. is satisfying. It's the next step for leveling up, according to the online choreography classes I took last year. It's difficult because I loathe repetitive music and dance with such a fiery and unrelenting passion that I have taken my work to the opposite extreme and ANY repetition of any kind in my work is used for target practice. I HATE repetition, so repeating motifs in my work feels like the antithesis of everything I've ever stood for as an artist and it sometimes make me feel like I'm unoriginal and lazy and that I write boring choreography (and therefore I'm a failure), even though I can think of many great examples where a tiny bit of repeated melody makes the song stronger and the soul happy. I guess my difficulty right now is in figuring out which bits should be repeated, and how many times they should be repeated. No surprise, given how much I've avoided it thus far in almost ten years of choreographing.

At least at this point in my life, I'm at least slightly familiar with the concept of giving myself grace to learn and try new things and maybe even fail a little bit at them at first. This was NOT in my vocabulary when I graduated college two years ago, but it's here now and it's serving me well.

I am proud of how much I've accomplished so far this month and I hope that the lessons I'm learning are strengthening my work, especially as I continue forward into my goal of creating full-length shows.

Goals 2022

This is probably the hardest goals post I've made. Last year I skipped it entirely because pandemic, but this year CoVID-19 vaccines are a thing and things are opening up a little bit. And that means more opportunities are coming back.

So. Goals.

- National Choreography Month in January (more on that here). I'd ideally like to choreograph at least two pieces this month. I've almost certainly decided on one of them.

- 14 dances in 12 months. Managed 12 in 12 almost by accident in 2021, and I'd like to do that again this year... but up the challenge just a little bit. No sense getting stagnant and predictable.

- Finally publish my Patreon page that's literally done, just sitting and waiting to be published. I've been putting this off because I would first need to research if income from a Patreon page would affect my husband's benefits and that is a very daunting task, especially given the lack of communication we get from his case worker, not to mention the insufferably condescending attitude they give us when we finally do get through to them. But I'll need to publish this page, especially if I want to get the training necessary to pull off a full-length show by the time I'm thirty.

- Take some freakin dance classes. Do them online downstairs in the apartment laundry room if I have to.

- Make at least two dance films. Preferably at least one of them with more than one dancer (or at least with a dancer who isn't me).

- Do a live performance of my choreography somehow, somewhere. Enter stuff into showcases and competitions that I can find all over the province. Stretch goal: stage a full-length (possibly recital-style) show.

- Actually (re)-learn some of my dances. Make a learning/rep-building schedule and actually stick to it this time. (The main goal here is to have a full-length show at least learned, if not completely ready to stage, by the end of the year.)

I really don't know how I'm going to do this one. I've tried this every year since 2018 and it still hasn't stuck. I get frustrated with myself so easily and when I do manage to focus and silence the self-hatred long enough to actually learn a piece, I get bored of doing the same dances over and over. It's also really hard to practice consistently enough to learn rep when you have no consistent practice space and work saps all of your energy.

- Busk at the farmer's market this year. It's extra cash, plus practice. It's perfect -- if only I didn't have this crippling self-doubt (thanks, college) that makes me think literally everybody at the market is going to think I'm just an annoying untalented poser and an embarrassing waste of skin. (Plus, this might also throw a wrench into my husband's benefits and dealing with his case worker is not a fun time... see above.)

- Do at least one theatre show. Last time I performed onstage was February 2020 -- less than three weeks before the shutdown. Auditions are starting to open up, slowly. I did one this past spring, but then Alberta locked down again so the show got cancelled.

- Continue posting more on this blog. I'm liking the pace I've been doing lately and I'd like to keep that up. Some of my struggle with that is just a mental block that anything I post will just result in more emotional abuse from extended family. I've really pushed this blog back into hiding to avoid some of those repercussions, and that's okay. I would rather write freely on here than have to censor myself and my work to make random people happy.

- Do NaNoWriMo again in November. I'll have to come up with an idea though.

- Publish a short story.

- Write a short story in German.

- The perennial favourite: actually finish a Kyrie revision.

- Be more intentional about getting back into the Bible and praying. But more than that, actually implementing things that it says, like being thankful, not complaining, doing justly, loving mercy...

- Pick up an instrument. Either bass or piano. Learn enough to enjoy noodling. Don't get caught up expecting to become famous.

- Save up a $1000 emergency fund -- and then only touch it for ACTUAL emergencies. Remember that 'chips' or 'I forgot to take hamburger out of the freezer so I don't know what to do for dinner' is not an emergency.

- Make the sweater that I've been meaning to make for myself.

- Make birthday presents for all my siblings as needed.

We're already off to kind of a rough start, as I've managed to get a concussion and have missed all but two workdays of this pay period. We're just barely treading water financially, and now this. Is it madness to start dance classes on 8 January -- both from a concussion standpoint and a financial standpoint? Is my dream dead in the water -- again? I've already missed two years of dance, and I'm tired of not having it in my life. But can I really justify signing up for dance again when we're going to be late on our rent and I'm going to be getting less than $230 on my next paycheque?

I guess it's still better than the annual lung infection I used to get every single year at this time. Thanks, masks.