Nothin' much to report.
I've been in Sydney not blogging. I was distracted by work. How very Sydney?
But I'm back in Melbourne now. Hopefully I can get it together to get moving
this week.
So Sydney was nice, and I
use the term 'nice' purposefully. I get an odd feeling that I may have to move
there one day. Maybe that's why I criticise it so. Sorry if you live there, but
here's my dig.
Sydney hmmmnnnn. I think
the key to enjoying a life in Sydney means you need to be a filthy rich
motherfucker! The whole 'money' thing there is as palpable as it is
vacuous and boring. Something we can all be guilty of at times, is the cash
chase in lieu of pursuing something a little more meaningful. I must say I do enjoy that I'm a
guilty spender. There's nothing like buyers remorse after an unnecessary binge, I'd like to think guilt like this keeps me grounded. As we all know, the trap with money is the more you have the
more you spend. My impression of Sydney this time is much like cocaine or
fine dining; it's a novelty experience leaving you feeling short changed,
excessive and still hungry.
Over the weekend I was
asked if I go to see ballet. To that I answered 'not really, I get bored'. For the same reasons I don't get into Sydney really, it's not human enough. I started to list some of the reasons why ballet irks me. Here's what I came up with. For the first 30
minutes of a ballet performance it's impressive on a technical
level, but that's it. My understanding of the technique allows me to appreciate the skill and
precision in which the dancers execute the form. The sheer athleticism is
amazing, but ballet is tough and cruel and I can see all of it's shortcomings right there on the stage. In the ballet world a dancer is essentially a droid, replaceable
at any given moment regardless of the work, the dancer to dedication. Genetics and fate in combination will decide whether you cut it or not. There's no amount of work
ethic or blind ambition that can fill that gap. Basically to be a ballet
dancer, you need to have been born that way in all types of absurd ways and
dedicate your entire life to sacrifice. I suppose like any all-consuming elite
pursuits, life is compromised or defined by what you do, for what you love. For
me, I had three major factors contributing to my early aborted ballet career.
Apart from starting too late (I only started dancing at 8yrs old- ancient in
ballet terms), genetics was a key factor also and the love for the art always
too fell short. But it was never really enough for me in the first place and
here's why.
The qualities that ballet
lacks (and warning, this a very broad sweeping statement on my part, please
feel free to offer up arguments) are mood, soul and honesty. Ballet by nature
is false. Its artistry really is in the concealing of the effort it takes to
execute such a strange corporeal milling of movements so alien that only aliens
can perform them. Mere mortals need not try. On so many levels I like to see a
dancer sweat, hurt and feel. I think throughout my life I've always felt that
I'm being lied to in some way, and ballet is a massive liar blatantly fibbing
to my face. The facade is not working on me. It's insincere by nature, I get that. I understand that the art is the facade. I just don't like it. And I don't have to. I like dance to bang for my buck, and I want it to be beautiful, vulnerable and frighteningly truthful.
For example. This clip by
DV8 is the kind of dance that I love.
I don't know how I feel about choosing the most obscure
misunderstood contemporary art practice going, and I why I've spent all of my
time obsessing over whether I can do it or not. I've been asking myself these
questions for years now. Maybe that's the conundrum that brought me to writing this blog about it.
My first dance teacher told
me at a very early age, that I was too 'creative' for ballet, what she meant
was non-conformist. I'd have to agree. At that age I had a general unkept manner about me.
Pre-class was as tedious for my teachers as it was for me being told that I had
problematic feet ill suited for ballet and that I would have to work harder on my turn
out and any number of other trivial things that my body and most bodies were
incapable of achieving. I managed to wing it later on as I got the groove for
it and in my 4th year of ballet study I was accelerated into classes with girls
two or even three years older than me. I liked the feeling of being the no body
at the back of class, working my way forward.
Just before I quit dancing
for the first time I started to get a glimpse of the seedy self-serving side of
the entertainment industry. My friendships eventually turned sour as a result of unnecessarily enforced acts of cruelty encouraged by some parents. Competitive behaviour is a
consequence of feelings of bitterness, delusions of grandeur and subsequent
failures of their daughters who were struggling to meet their mothers ambitions. I was often made feel
inferior as a way of intimidation. At high school
the divide wasn't so obvious, and no one really cared anyway. But there it was
the first time I realised that some people really truly believed that money
defined who they were, and they defended it. I always loved my parents for their distaste
towards those mothers. Cash or no cash, they were not nice people and I was taught to judge people based on kindness first. My mum would drop me off outside the
studio at the traffic lights and crossing to avoid them. She rarely ever came in unless it
was late at night. Simply because she hated those mothers, and for obvious
reasons. My dad never really got the dance/art thing and certainly didn't ever
step foot into that studio. I would have been mortified if he did anyway. My father
walks the earth ready to tell pretentious wankers tying to imposition him 'to
fuck off'. I think he could appreciate the physicality of dance but I knew he
couldn't relate to it in any way. He was proud of my talent but preferred
it remain a hobby for me. He really preferred netball, but secretly he
wished that I'd played rugby or golf. I was the son my father never had. I
think the reason they took it away from me as punishment for acting out at
school was because they could sense that I was at risk of getting hurt by and
subsequently sucked into the bullshit and falsity that's inherent in the
culture of life in the performing arts at a young age.
A few things led to me
quitting dance the first time around when I was at the start of year 8 at school.
A lot had to do with money and not having enough of it to keep up with the
Kardashians. The fees, costumes, new shoes, new everything was becoming another
reason for my parents to fight. But on some level I started to feel how
different I was to all the other girls and it's a feeling I didn't know how to
embrace yet. A shame really, because not only did I quit dancing, I quit
singing (which I was much better at the time). The dance was to support the
singing training. Ballet in particular for me was solely for elocution
purposes. I was never going to be a ballerina we all knew that. I never wanted
to be, I wanted to be Kate Bush. However ballet was teaching me poise,
discipline and ultimately an understanding of my limitations and acceptance of
what I could and could change. I didn't have the body for it, and because
of that the training was painful and time consuming, plus I wanted to have a
normal teenage life. Travelling an hour to and from Richmond every day proved
to be counter to having more freedom to go to the movies with friends on the
weekend, or buying new clothes for free dress days.
After a few years of fucking up
as a teenager after I made my way back to dance as a form or reprieve. I found
freedom in the discipline to lock myself in a studio for hours on end as a form
of therapy where I'd just work out my version of things. For me dance was
elusive and abstract enough that I could completely immerse myself in it, and as
a result confront myself and start to unravel what I couldn't quite admit to in
my life. Back then getting into a studio was easy and naive.
I love the luxury of regret
and hindsight. I often wonder whether I would have 'conformed' if I'd
stayed in the commercial dance world like the one I was being groomed for.
Would it have been an easier life for me if I had stuck with it and potentially
averted a teenage disaster? Who knows?
What I do know is; my dance
journey really begins when I go back to it, over and over again. I just can't
shake the history and I can't ignore the sometimes-unhealthy relationship I've
built with it over the years. It's hurt me brutally, loves me with force and
completely ignores me. But I keep coming back.
On and end note I'd like to
quote my friend Rhys. Completely out of context, but it fitting.
'Bodies can always compress
time; senses allow the years to collapse in ways that our minds refuse to, no
matter how strong the desire. '
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