It’s great to have archives of eccentric dancers to study for my whale dance solo.

And here’s my new dance footwear…cut out white plastic bag in shape of whale tail taped to reef walkers…they have the right amount of flop but not too much. Now to

1. add whale tail moves to Jack Stanford moves

2. figure out how to put these on while audience is watching and I’m delivering my dialogue with Merry Sioux and Lee!

Must practice.

Oh and happy thanksgiving y’all!

As I get older (and hopefully wiser) as an artist, I’m looking less and less for answers and more and more for ways out of creative roadblocks, shame spirals, defensive crouches, box canyons, that can feel insurmountable when lost in them.

My Rosen therapist, Jennifer Boone, said it’s like a rat in a maze hitting it’s head against a roadblock but then relaxes and is able to sniff up past the wall and look around 360 degrees and see a number of ways out.

My latest creative block is around performing.

Last week at David Ford’s class, Diane said it broke her heart that I didn’t like performing. that in the middle of a piece I’d get bored and ask myself what was I doing. What gall I had splatting my blather in front of an audience. Sometimes my voice would go dead. Sometimes my mind a terrifying blanket of white. A few seconds became agonizing hours.

I blurted out that I missed the carefree days of youth when as teenagers. Under the dramatic leadership of Phil Simons me and my friends did many wild and crazy performances for children. Come one come all! Join the Bubblegum Players! No auditions. No learning lines. Lots of improv games. No stress.

We made whack-ed out costumes and props. Put everything in a giant pirates trunk and toured. Everything we used on stage was pulled out of the magic trunk Phil constructed. That thing was HEAVY. A couple of bodies could be stashed in there.

But hey, why can’t I employ the Phil Simons methods in directing myself? Improv games for my scenes instead of dead word memorization of lines. Sure improv doesn’t maximize the language but hell, at least its more fun!

As my dear husband put it, re-establish my relationship with pleasure in performing. So that’s what today’s method is. That and finding whacked out friends who want to work together on stuff.

I worked an hour today. There were moments of pleasure. And the work was more free. I still feel like I’m trying to punch through the rat maze wall. Maybe tomorrow will be better when two colleagues from Ford’s class come over and work with me.

One of the best things to do as a creative artist is to show embryonic work. It’s also one of the worst things .

I don’t want to humble-brag so I’ll just flat out brag…one of my artist super powers is being able to survive the torturous but usually productive process of showing work in it’s formative stage and getting helpful feedback.

Like everything in life, there are many right ways to  do this. And there are wrong ways…oh and some truly terrible ways. After a lifetime of doing it, I’d like to pass on some principles that have helped me…please, if you have any tips to get good, early feedback, add your two cents in the comments.

So…

1. have a reward picked out for doing this. This is very important.

2. write out what you hope to get help with. do not think this in your head. write this on paper. very important

Show

1. to the right people

do not show to family or friends. most people (as in 99.9%) cannot see how things could be. pick your audience carefully.

2. at the right time

even if you pick carefully, sometimes you or the person you’re showing to is having an off day. do not take this personally.

3. with the right words

people only see what they see. but you can tell your audience this fact. it helps. usually.

Know

1. this is hard, there is nothing that will change this

2. you have to show your work sooner or later, sooner (but not too soon!) is generally better

3. whatever you do, don’t stop working on your art

Flow

1. next step, decide what will do next time (even if this changes, say it. tell someone. commit.)

2. now go reward yourself, you did something huge.