Making It Work For You (!)

Tonight was a return of sorts to my work with my teacher from this summer, the wonderful Yo-el Cassell. I was in a position to take one class this fall, and I thought about doing the Company One acting workshop I did last fall, but I really wanted to continue the work I started in my movement class so Modern Dance at Boston Ballet on Thursdays seemed like the correct choice for where I'm at right now.

A decision which was reaffirmed during our session tonight. It was myself, seven or eight other students (including my friend Mary from Swimming in the Shallows whom I turned onto the class), Yo-el, and a percussionist to provide accompaniment. Just being in the room with Yo-el is fun and inspiring. He brings a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm to his classes, and just a general sense of fun which makes it easy to leave wanting more... unless you're exhausted and dripping with sweat, as I was at the end of this particular session.

It was very interesting seeing Yo-el work in this new context. Over the summer I was in movement for actors which brought with it a particular emphasis and energy from the presence of that particular group, whereas this is modern dance as offered by the sort of continuing education extension of Boston Ballet. So it was clear we had some serious ballet students, some more intermediate people and of course myself the stumbling beginner with near to none dance experience. And the emphasis on this class, in this session, was definitely on dance. We did some free work certainly, which as usual came most easily to me, but much of the class was taken up learning sequences of movements in sort of a Laban mode, neither of which are my forte but I made myself push forward and give it my best shot.

Because one of the key phrases to Yo-el's teachings is "make it work for you" and I think I started to do that. Rather than trying to imitate the sequence of movements as closely as possible and focus on the specifics I allowed myself to give over to the general flow of the actions... or I sort of started to, anyway. Part of the problem I've always had executing dance routines is they put me in my head. "OK feet there, turn like that, arms... where? Oh we're at the part where we kneel OK now wait how do I get up? OK just get up, keep going" and that's more or less where I was at because unlike text I can't hold in a lot of movements on short notice and I'm simply not familiar with the vocabulary. But then after a few go rounds I was comfortable enough to say "fuck it" and just go with it.

Fuck it, just go with it. That's a mantra. A good mantra. One which I'll need as I continue my work. I did feel myself getting some things I struggled with over the summer, particularly in the area of Laban work. And I'm sure I'll continue to do so when I'm able to make it to the class.

And then this weekend, I'm taking a two day intensive training in Lecoq movement technique which I know next to nothing about but will know more about very soon. Here we go! Fuck it, just go with it. Fuck it go with it. Fuck it just go...