An Open Letter...

photo copyright enoch chan

Dear You:

An Artist's Work Is to Make Art.

Not to explain it, write about it, build a model for it, etc. It is to simply make it.

See, most choreographers will never get to dance their own best work when they are most physically capable of doing so. It is a tragedy.

I can be a starving dancer for someone else's company and perform often, but in a way where I am using my instrument to say someone else's movement; and then choreograph my own work on the side. Or, I can teach, teach, teach, write grants, build a board, make marketing materials, build an audience, fund-raise, network, and STILL choreograph while training myself and others to perform my work. With the former, my work will be performed only as a commission in someone else's concerts - if ever. In the latter, I run the risk of building a reputation based on creating my vision on a fraction of the budget it actually needs to make the impact it should - meaning a reputation for the Wall-Mart version of my Rodeo Drive self. A clothing designer is not expected to make their designs on paper fabric with tooth-pics as thread. Most people understand that the materials matter. It is the same in choreography. Time with myself and with the dancers is my material - and it is expensive.

Either way, it will be years before my best work will be presented and performed.

In order to perform my own best work, I need to be in the studio a minimum of 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, not including class. Meaning I need 35 hours a week in the studio with myself and my dancers. The other 5 hours (to make up the 40 hour work week enjoyed by many) is spent managing dancer issues, taking care of props, supplies, costumes, rehearsal & performance schedules, venues, lighting & sound designers, musicians, Stage Manager, etc... oh, wait... that's more than 5 hours.

That is my work.

I suppose I'm sad and somewhat angry because I know it will take many years to generate enough revenue to make my work in that way. And by that time, I will not be able to dance it.

The sadness is knowing that reality. The anger comes from sitting at meetings with people who mean so well and knowing that they will never fully get it, because they are administrators and cannot possibly fully comprehend or appreciate the actual work that goes into the creative process of creating a concert. That process is expected to happen in my "free" time, grossly underpaid, and at the ultimate expense of my own vision. We are not paintings, we don't get better with age.

This process costs my soul. I cannot do what I see in my head and feel in my heart because I spend my most precious hours asking for money to make my work in a condensed and dysfunctional way - so that it can be properly documented, processed, and assessed - for someone else.

There has to be another model and I have to find it soon.

Help.