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...

2022 Goals Retrospective

I feel more satisfied about 2022 than I have about any year since 2018. I would not yet say I'm in top form yet, but I'm closer than I was.

This year, I...

- choreographed 24 pieces. My goal for 2022 was 14. I literally doubled my output from 2021.

- got 35k into revising Kyrie. The thing I'm most glad about here is how not-overwhelmed I feel about it. For eight years, I would try to revise this novel but my brain would go into nuclear-meltdown mode within literally ten minutes. This year I spent three months making a timeline, then started rewriting entirely from scratch. And we're still going.

- made a Ko-fi page for artistic income... and got my first donation.

- wrote my first poem since before my cousin died in early 2015.

- took an online tap class in which I learned some historical repertoire AND took a summer dance intensive.

- did live improv tap dance for the first time ever and loved it.

- wrote a 50k novel in November.

- performed in two theatre shows.

- got my first paid acting gig.

In many ways, I feel like I didn't do much of anything this year. These were all small changes that (aside from the dance classes) took maybe twenty minutes out of my day, but that was the point. I knew I didn't yet have the mental strength to overhaul my entire life, so I dedicated myself to shoehorning artmaking into my days as they already were, just enough so that I wouldn't lose my skills. It really doesn't feel like I've done much, but I look at this list of things I accomplished in just 365 days and I'm surprised at how big some of these things really are. A full novel? A paid gig? 35k into a project that stymied me for nearly a decade? Twenty-four pieces -- over an hour and a half -- of choreography? At least half of the things I accomplished here were not on my original list of goals for 2022, and all of the rest -- save NaNoWriMo -- were achieved in ways or to an extent I very much had not expected.

All I hope for is for this to double again in 2023. I would be completely happy with that.

In Memoriam: Armond Morales (1932-2022)

 I only found out yesterday that Armond Morales of the Imperials passed away on the 5th at age ninety.

Armond Morales' deep bass is a thread that has run through my entire life. I am by no means an Imperials aficionado, but my dad is. One of my earliest childhood memories is of my dad playing the Imperials' Big God (the only song I'm aware of in which Morales actually sang more than one solo line) so loudly that the dust literally fell from the ceiling.

My dad loved that song and he loved the band that made it. Albums like Let The Wind Blow (1985), Sail On (1980), Stir It Up (1992), One More Song For You (1979), ...This Year's Model (1987), and of course Big God (1991), were all in heavy rotation on my dad's hi-fi system when I was a child. ...This Year's Model comes up often on this blog as it has become one of my favourite albums too (the opening track is absolutely killer). My mother once told me a story from their dating years when Dad took her to an Imperials concert and during a medley proceeded to predict every song before it started. My mom thought he was psychic. She later learned that the exact same medley had been released on their 1990 album Love's Still Changing Hearts and my dad had it memorised word-for-word.

The Imperials have been a large part of the soundtrack of our family's life. For Armond Morales to be gone is truly the end of an era, both for the Christian music industry and for our family. The great tragedy is that nobody who listens to Christian music today realises what they have lost.

Morales managed the Imperials from the 1950s until 2017. Most bands don't even last a quarter of that time, let alone with the same manager. Even Bob Hartman's rock giant Petra is several decades behind such a milestone. The Imperials put out one solid, catchy album after another, year after year after year, from the Elvis era till the years of Hillsong's radio dominance. They shifted with the musical styles enough to sound current, but not enough to sound dated today. They navigated lead vocal changes with ease and grace and always managed to bring four-part harmonies about simple faith into whatever era they found themselves in. They were always, unfailingly, the Imperials, but they never sounded 'old,' like many gospel quartets do today. They gently guided old fundamental Christians into the current sound by staying unflinchingly true to their faith roots and as a result are a big part of why there even is such a thing as 'Christian radio' today.

Armond Morales was a quiet giant in the history of Christian music. We would do well to reflect on what he achieved and what mantle he has left behind for us, the faith-based artists of today.

New Professional

 Last night, I officially signed the contract for my first-ever paid acting gig.

It's such a surreal feeling. It's an honourarium (plus transportation costs) for a small local show, but it's still a paid gig. This is exactly the thing I was striving so hard for between 2018 and 2020; the thing that literally every performing arts authority at college said I would never be good enough for.

I have officially exceeded their expectations of me. And I'm only going to go farther.

This wasn't a fluke either. I have worked with this director before (as an ensemble/nonverbal character actor), so he knew exactly what I'm like to work with -- and still hired me. (This was something that my college professor was VERY clear on -- that nobody would want to work with me because I 'don't take direction well/am too stubborn.') Not only did this director hire me, he gave me a character with lines. I would also like to point out that I did not audition for this role -- I was personally invited by the director to be a part of this production.

This show is a production associated with a MAJOR annual summer production that is known internationally (that I've also been in twice now). It's a smaller show that they've never done before, but it's well-known that the venue wants to make this production an annual one as well. The show is already completely sold out.

So I guess if being paid for my work makes me a professional (I know it's attitude more than money that makes one professional, but it seems nobody outside the industry knows that), then that means I am OFFICIALLY a professional actress.

And everybody who said I couldn't do this was -- as I suspected -- extremely wrong.

NaNoWriMo - Day 15

I'm really surprised how much I'm struggling with the novel this year. The setting, the genre, and the theme are all things I'm really passionate about, but I'm just lacking spark this year. I worked on the first, so I wasn't able to get the big head start that I usually do and that's come back to bite me in the butt. If I'm lucky, I'm closing one day ahead. I know most people would rejoice at even a one-day lead, but I've finished by this point multiple times in the past.

My plot feels slow. I didn't know what was going to happen when MMC got outside of the oxygen dome, but I wasn't too worried about it -- I figured my pantsing brain would just figure it out like it usually does. I've been here almost a week now and it just... hasn't. I spent three days with two characters in a circular theological argument that bored even me but multiplied the word count. I've even cited lengthy passages of Scripture (in said theological argument). I need to figure out what the next big plot point is, and I need to get my character there, emotionally. But I sit down to write and my brain just gives me static. I don't even feel despair about it, just apathy. There's just nothing in my brain, and it makes me sad. I had thought that doing little to no art for the better part of two years would have given my brain time to replenish its imaginative stores, but apparently this is not the case.

Anyway, I'd better get back to poking away at the story. Hopefully this blows over as Week Two wraps up and we head into Week Three.

Current word count: 26,340.

National Novel Writing Month 2022 Teaser

Yes, dear readers, it is that time of year again. National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is only six days away.

This year's idea came to me backstage during the one and only theatre production I did this year. I was literally in the wings waiting for my cue when suddenly the main character's name, the world, the setting, and the plotline all popped into my head fully formed. I've been doing this long enough to know this was it. I went onstage, did my scene, and then came backstage and wrote down as much as I could in my journal before my next entrance.

And then, like I usually do, I ignored it for the next four months. (Otherwise I'll write it and have nothing for NaNoWriMo.)

I am really excited about this one. I knew before I even got this idea that I wanted to do a science fiction story, but I could never have manufactured this one by brainstorming. Sometimes brainstorming works, but more often I find my best ideas are just 'given' to me and all I have to do is write them down. Those are the moments that make all the mockery and ridicule for pursuing this craft worth it.

This idea took my recently-developed love of modern-day parables and mixed it perfectly with the outer space setting I wanted -- so perfectly that this book literally could not work set anywhere else. The whole plot hinges on this setting. And it fits right in with all my rants about Evangelicals. I have not been this excited for NaNoWriMo in literally almost a decade.

It all starts next Tuesday.

If you want to write your own, check out nanowrimo.org for details and to sign up. It's 50,000 words in 30 days (or 1,667 words per day), and not one word needs to be 'handed in' or 'graded.'  Nobody will see it unless you want them to. This is purely writing for the sake of writing. No pressure (other than the 30-day deadline).

A Way To Support Me

You may notice a new button along the right side of the blog, just underneath my bio.

Jury's still out on the Patreon page, but for now I'm trying to bridge the gap with Ko-fi. Ko-fi has the option of one-time donations rather than monthly contributions (although it can be set up that way too), which lowers the pressure on potential supporters and the initial commitment level. I know as well as anybody how tight things are financially and how hard it is to commit to a monthly pledge in the current financial climate. I currently have the minimum donation set to $3, although you can certainly contribute more if you like.

Right now I have a financial goal of $500 on the site. That's how much money it will take to get me back into dance training one hour a week this fall. I've been off for two years and rebuilding my mental/emotional health for a third. I feel I'm at a point in my mental health/burnout recovery where I can -- and perhaps should -- go back into the studio and start training my body again. Unfortunately, gas prices do not agree and neither does my paycheque. My paycheque only covers bills and rent. It does not cover fun things or mental health things like dance, books, and music. Heck, sometimes it barely covers food and rarely covers gas (I walk to work and try very hard not to have to go anywhere else -- not even to the library to read books for free).

Ko-fi is going to be my artistic income. My 'real' job is going to take care of the bills, but my plan is for Ko-fi to fund what I really want to do (rather than trying to raise enough through Ko-fi to cover my living expenses AND my artistic work).

Right now, my goals are mainly going to be training-based -- classes and intensives. As I get my dance legs back under me, I'll start posting more film-related goals (costumes, dancers, sets, light design), and once I finish this Kyrie rewrite (over one-third done and still going!), there'll be a goal to raise the money to pay an editor. But the vast majority of the money from the Ko-fi will be going into my dance training/education/development, and all of it will be going to my artistic work in general.

If you can contribute even $3 (the price of a coffee -- and I should know, I work in the industry), that would help so much. Even if you can't spare three bucks, share the link with your arts-loving friends. I deeply appreciate any and all help.

Thank you.