First Year Review

Hello beautiful people. I am writing to you from the ever-wonderful Durham, North Carolina where I am spending my third summer. It is sort of bizarre to spend three months of your year in a place over and over again. I will be seeing so much dance soon, and even sooner than that I will see a wild horse (or two). More on NC soon… I am simultaneously working my full time job for the summer while finishing up my first year of GRAD SCHOOL! Which is crazy. This time last year I was also here, in Durham, and had no idea that grad school was in my very near future. This year was everything I needed while also showing me what I no longer need. I think this was maybe the best thing I could have done for myself. I want to share my First Year Review with you all. This is basically when you submit some writing and video and your CV and a few of the people you look up to most in the world tell you if you are doing good work… so like, no pressure whatsoever. I wrote this back in March, and it is sort of amazing to see how much my thoughts on some of this have already evolved since then. Some of this may be familiar as I’ve sort of worked it out in these little emails. So, thanks for being my first set of eyes.

Sometimes I feel like a poser. My favorite part of any dance I have ever seen is when a fly flutters across the stage and I remember that I am a human with bones and cheese rotting in my fridge. I’ve just witnessed an incredible feat of humanity, “the ineffable magic of a pulsating, sweaty body immersed in a live ritual in front of our eyes,” and all I can think about is that fly (Guillermo Gomez-Pena). I think it has to do with this sentiment that I think dance can do so much more than it sometimes does. Tere has been posing the question, “Is this an active choice or just a consequence of being in dance?” Which is changing my approach. The fly somehow shatters these consequential ways of decision making.

Low-stakes creative environments are helping me learn to trust my instincts. Lately I am thinking of choreography like collaging which feels like a shift from the more narrative work I have done in the past. Cutting out scraps of things that excite me and layering them over one another to see what happens. Considering chance as a method of avoidance but also the radical notion of putting your trust in the unknown, to gamble. I am finding that these tools give the movement an opportunity to hold multiple meanings.

Much of my first semester I was interested in the choreography of the mundane and embodied rituals. More specifically, I have been thinking about the rituals of my youth which were mostly rooted in Catholicism. I am interested in how that God (capital G even after all these years) still paints my world view; like how I still pray to him when I’m really scared. The drama and choreography and guilt of growing up Catholic feels so clearly linked to making dances. In synthesis last semester, I was doing some research around this with a deep study of child’s pose. I realized that this is how I used to kneel in prayer during adoration every Tuesday for an hour from third to eighth grade. If I combine all those Tuesdays, I have sat in that position in deep prayer for over 100 hours, but I can’t remember what I prayed for. This has been coming up again in Deke’s class. When I was in third grade I thought I was the Virgin Mary reincarnated. I’ve created this character that is sort of me embracing this truth I once held and imagining this “sacred” being in my modern body.

I have this dysphoria between the way I move vs. the way I set movement. I respect and trust the way my body makes choices when given the agency to do so, but as soon as I start setting material I feel like I am trying so hard to be interesting and quirky and blah blah blah. I have been thinking about this dysphoria in relation to grief. I started working on a solo last semester in synthesis that I eventually see being an evening length work. This project aims to set a grief ritual of mine into a piece of choreography about this enmeshment I have to my mom. I noticed that trying to set this type of movement makes it lose the authenticity in it, so I worked more from a place of improvisational scores as opposed to rigidly set work. The way I improvise feels more closely related to how I grieve in private. The gross dirty parts of my grief that I don’t want to share with the world like this sweatshirt of my mom that I haven’t washed in three years, or all these expired spices that I’ve moved through 5 apartments now, or how I cried when I cut my hair because now there isn’t a single hair left on my head that she has touched. When I try to set the movement, it feels more like the awkward smile I put on when someone tells me that she is looking down on me. Like I am once again just the sack of bones and flesh carrying  her features for her friends and family who knew her and not me. Or I am back in that weird church where I self-produced and choreographed her funeral. 

I am noticing the way I use transitions. How I sort of don’t. I just abandon an idea when I am sick of it and move onto the next thing that excites me. Sort of rejecting the notion that I have to skillfully transition from one move/theme into the next. Life transitions are seldom seamless and my brain rarely moves from one idea to the next in a cohesive way so why should I value this in dance making? This is appearing through the use of tangent or interrupting something to return to it. This feels both exciting and satisfying to me because it is breaking linearity in a way that aligns with how I walk through the world. It makes dance a place for real experiences as opposed to an idealized world where one thing leads to another and nothing ever overlaps or returns unless in a hyper-poetic way.

I have sort of surprised myself with the amount of ballet I have taken in this first year. It somehow feels like home to me despite the fact that I have never really been welcome in it. Ballet is like church to me, I think, but without the morality. Or, perhaps, I just don’t prescribe to the morality of it. Like if you went to mass to kneel and listen to the music and say the prayers but not really believe them and just like how they feel in your body. I love the ritual of it, how it makes me feel both strong and delicate at the same time, the way performance is integrated. I no longer feel like I am trying to fit this mold I simply (and objectively) do not. There is also something inherently queer about doing something despite not fulfilling the expectations of it. I’m starting to think of my experience in ballet as a version of drag. I like being a dyke doing ballet.

I must talk a bit about Stunning! In my execution of this work, I stunned myself. I was bold and brave and other worldly. I didn’t realize how much it meant to me to be seen in my truest, most ugly and beautiful at the same time, form. I had this moment when I was performing the work on the final night where I realized that stunningness actually has nothing to do with beauty. For my whole life, I thought I wanted to be beautiful, but I think I really want to be stunning. Not in the sense of “extremely impressive or attractive.” No, no, no. I want to stun, “astonish or shock (someone) so that they are temporarily unable to react.” I know I am loved, but I feel greedy with it. I want to be loved more. Honestly, I want to be loved the most. I want to be everyone’s favorite person. I want people to cheer for me. I want to be laughed at. I want to be missed. I want to be devoured. Not tasted, devoured. Then I want to be thrown up and eaten again. I know that is crazy. And gross. And selfish. I know that I am capable of being all those things. I know deep down, I am all those things. Performing Tessa’s work at ACDA also has me considering the role of the stage in my human experience. When I’m in character I don’t leave myself completely, but rather I let out parts of myself that I usually keep hidden. For 12 minutes I let people see the ugliest parts of myself, my deepest desires and biggest fears, the emotional fiber of a complex being live right in front of your eyes. LOOK AT ME!!!!!! LOVE ME!!!!! HATE ME!!!!! WHATEVER!!!!!! And now I am me, Marlee, again but I know the endless affinities of myself a bit better.

“Being who you are, using your body to demonstrate that, and trying your best” is how one of my students defined the values of our class. YES! These are my values! They get it! I see them get it in the way they move. They are taking up space and using the weight of their big beautiful brains to fully commit to big moves. I see something else brewing as well – they are learning to be more comfortable in who they are by taking risks and giving themselves grace and being brave and commitment to impossible tasks. I love seeing the slow progression from beginner, to grasping with certain concepts, to full release, to lifelong learner. Dance builds character and kindness and wisdom unlike anything else I have ever known.

(BREIF INTERLUDE FROM MARLEE TODAY: I just received some feedback from my students about their experience in the class and want to share a quote from one of them: “Marlee cultivated a dance space that was genuinely safe for everyone to try and explore new things. With each passing week, I felt myself become more comfortable with stepping outside my comfort zone, as well as finding comfort in making mistakes. Not being stifled by the fear of making mistakes allowed me to grow in ways I never imagined. This newfound freedom from mistakes didn’t just apply within the studio; it impacted my everyday life and allowed me to find comfort in not being perfect. Additionally, I embraced challenges. Rather than viewing them as a roadblock, I saw them as an opportunity for growth. And that was really freeing.” BE STILL MY BEATING HEART!!!!!!)

I am finding writing to be the most challenging, but also probably most crucial, part of this program. I have a hard time writing about dance in general. I feel like I can talk about it in a pretty eloquent way, but when it comes time to write about it I struggle. I am so critical of my writing. All of the courses are helping me with this, but I still feel so insecure. I am starting to accept that maybe everyone feels that way FOREVER. I am trying to tackle this through my newsletter (thank you, dear readers!) where I share my writing about what I am up to in regards to movement and life. I am doing this to be more deliberate and thoughtful in the ways I am reflecting on the work I am doing and to get in a consistent practice of sharing my writing with others. It's also an attempt to embrace more small scale modes of communication rather than the echo-chamber that is instagram.com. (speaking of I am like two months clean)

I need to be in some sort of city when I am done here. I am gaining a lot from the corn… but I need to be in a place that has more than one gay bar. I am not really interested in full-time academic work immediately after graduating, nor do I think that will be an option for me with the point I am at in my career. I would love to adjunct somewhere, and will certainly teach in some capacity. I really just want to be deeply committed to pursuing my work in the “real world." My plan is to apply for jobs (administrative, teaching, waitressing) in cities that excite me and go wherever something works out. Right now, I am having really big dreams about New York, but I’m not sold on the reality of those dreams yet. I’m headed back to ADF this summer to work at their Company Manager again. My work at ADF is so supplemental to what I do here. Getting to see what is happening in the field shapes a lot for me. It is also a great place for networking and I always gain so much from the classes I take there. The connections I make here could maybe help with the whole job thing mentioned before. 

Part of me wonders if grad school at this time in my life was the right call. I will say that I am feeling more sure of my decision lately because of everything you have read so far. However, I do still wonder if I should be doing that “making work in the real world” thing now. I am attempting to combat that by, you know, making work in the real world. Over winter break, I hosted a residency in St. Louis called chew & spit. I was going into it with an emphasis on process over product, and the product ended up being an evening length work called “say la V.” It was my first time putting on my own show, working with a group (8 dancers and 1 musician), and my longest work to date. It was so deeply special to me and sort of a success. We sold out our show, I broke even after paying all the collaborators, and I think there is excitement for it to come back. Okay fine, it was a success. I’m planning to do this each winter to supplement my choreographic research and stay connected to St. Louis. 

I feel grateful to be here. I’ve been making an effort to be more present in my life in Urbana. The adjustment has been difficult at times and I’ve lost some things because of my choice to come here, but that is just making me more sure of and committed to all the magic that happens here. I’m making a real effort to attend more events on campus and in the CU community. I feel like a sponge ready to soak in everything I can, now I just need to clarify the shape of the sponge (aka what the heck do I want to do for a thesis). 

Thanks for being here. As always, reach out with any thoughts. Or if you just want to talk more about dance, life, etc. Happy summer, friends :)