I watched ‘Étoile’ whilst on break this Summer. I had been eagerly awaiting both – the break and the show. When they both arrived together, I was in slothful heaven. Lying on my belly, biting into crackers and cheese and cherries, sipping on white wine, I stared at a screen that brought me closer to the reality of Dancing today than we allow ourselves to come face to face with whilst we are in fact Dancing. As with most things that are consuming, it’s hard to see it for what it is, for what we are, when we’re in it. It takes taking a step back, reversing the consumption pattern, even if for a little bit, to process, prepare and present ourselves better. As I went from one episode to the next, I was levelling up into a more pensive paradise.
The show is the “Play” button that might be that necessary “Pause” that Dancers should take to encounter both the challenge and magic of their industry. And feel a tid bit of that catharsis that we have counter-productively convinced ourselves comes to us only and only when we move.
Étoile asked and answered questions that are rarely articulated in words. Questions and Answers that made me take long walks in quiet contemplation to evaluate the core of who we are, what we have, why we do what we do and how, if ever, we can be better, in our seasons of creation, reflection, restoration and action. Because Art, like a child always needs more and more and more…
If anything, we can confirm that this business of Dance, like motherhood, like life, can’t be navigated without those bottles of wine and may be even milk (and cookies for comfort), while we mull over some unsettling realities that are essential to accept and with any luck, address.
How does an industry full of people who live with their heads in the clouds survive sensibly (commerically) on Earth?
Why do these head-in-the-clouds Dancers let themselves go this far in their heads? How has this turned us into aliens on Earth? Can anything good come out of it?
How many of our stories are written in the stars, preordained, as against us choosing them for ourselves? What wool gets in our heads, deeply-dyed, that we simply can’t cut it out and away?
How aligned are all the generations of Dancers that inhabit the Earth today? Are we all willing to give what it takes? Time, attention, maniacal commitment?
How fair is it to expect Dancers to be popular, branding agents, market themselves and be marvellous at their Art all at once? Is the job of a Dancer not simply to Dance and master their Art (which by the way is far from simple)?
Over the years, on the rare occasions that I’ve allowed myself to lie on my tummy, watching a show or a documentary about Dance (always, about Dance goddammit!), it is a sore reminder of the number of years I have spent learning, honing, loving and loathing my art form of Dance. Sore to the point that my bum starts to hurt even though I’m not lying on it nor quite moving it.
There’s a physical pain in the heart, like in unrequited love, in taking stock of the amount of time that Dance has taken up in the life of a Dancer. And when you do the Math – the addition and multiplication – and juxtapose it with the amount of time social media (“reels” and other annoyingly familiar social media nomenclature) allows you to show proof of your practice – put on a show with everything you bust your bum for really – you arrive at a ratio that is so disproportionate, it induces pain that you cannot rationalize – which I think is worse than any other.
30 seconds, every now and then, alright may be 90 seconds, to show off the work of 25 years (could be more…)
And sure, we could keep the flashes and snippets and uploads going, but why should we have the time if we are also meant to be creating and practicing and performing and still bettering the work of decades?!!!
That’s what the Arts are up against. No or low attention spans. How is a generation of artistes going to emerge from a generation that can’t hold its own attention for 2 minutes? What depth of exploration of history, form, technique and artistry can you expect from those we expect to place the future of the Art in the hands of?
What we have today is a generation of Dancers that grew up obsessed, possessed and out-and-out nuts about their Art – to the extent that they don’t want to live in the world and only work at their Art (because that’s the only way we knew it could be…) having to co-operate with, build up and co-exist with a generation that has the staying power of a dry leaf on a windy day, the conversational capacity of a cupboard (because they’re too busy watching reels or gauging their moods/outfits/workouts of the day – again, a pop culture induced assessment) and the fire/passion of a snowflake for everything besides mental health – which happens to be a concept that does not/did not exist for a Dancer because WE ARE vanilla MENTAL about what we do – Dance!
So, we have a generational, ideological, mental and naturally, a physical divide (for how far the former generation pushed itself) between the Dancers of the Here and Now and the Dancers that will follow…or will they?!
How do we fill up artistic arenas? How do we run art classes for a generation that won’t stick it out where they need to be patient, repetitive, committed and focused? How do we sell tickets? How do we tell whole stories that the founding artists of our art forms created whole vocabularies of gesture to tell? Do we have an audience patient enough to watch, listen and interpret? Can we pull off anything sans a ‘sweat-proof make-up influencer’ or a pseudo-celebrity (with a sole talent in angles for optimum face captures) validating our double-dozen-plus years of arduous effort and careful expertise? Perhaps we need a global call for mandatory artistic immersion to shake and make people aware of the heritage we have inherited and should hope to secure and sustain. Perhaps we need more seasons of ‘Étoile’ to speak for everything it takes to be and remain and dream of being a Dancer, in a company, in a country, in a world that has made it so unbearably difficult and confusing and so-not-understood and painful (not just physically) to do so.
Tobias, Étoile’s unbelievably offbeat but miraculous choreographer is the masterclass in unhinged creation that we all need. Every part of him, in every frame he appears in, screams, “If we’re nuts, we may as well go all the way…” Because that’s what it takes:
Creative breakthroughs in Dance – specifically choreography – come to an artiste after an indefinite but definitely long period of time in deep thought, exhausting and seemingly senseless repetition of movement and periodic breakdowns. The need to create hurts. It irritates and it requires a restless creative to not live in the world because if she/he did, they would never be able to rationalize the agony of thought, action and creation that they inflict upon themselves. The undulating nature of this process cannot and should not be condensed into a 40-second reel because when it’s done and when something beautiful is made after all the back and forth and recalls and rejections and despair and brick by brick piecing together and final touches, it’s for the world to behold and keep and uphold for a future generation that will be inspired to do the same. It has to be felt and experienced in its full format – ups and downs included, inspiring more creation, more commitment, more resilience, more daydreaming that then, carries a crowd with you into that dream itself; a crowd that values the tremendous beauty, headache, heartache, energy, resolve and endeavour of Art.
It isn’t until the near-end of the first season of Étoile that we hear the protagonist, Cheyenne (someone you will be perplexed why you start to love until you start to see it’s because she’s so unapologetically her authentic self, not to mention the incredible Lou de Laâge plays this authenticity to perfection) say what we wish we were able to put into words ourselves, as Dancers – a psychotic species that can’t quite decode itself, for reasons inclusive of but not limited to psychosis, seclusion, masochism and abstraction.
On being asked if she had ever considered being anything but a Dancer, she says:
“There was no alternative for me. To do something other than Dance. It got in my brain, you know. Like a song that won’t leave and I hummed it all the time this song. I went to sleep with the song running through my head and woke up to it every morning, always the song. The world is hard, you know. With all the meanness, the cruelty. People today want to fight. They want to be angry. Okay, but how do we express that anger? How do we turn it into something better? How do we create hope when no one listens? Maybe they watch. Maybe, you Dance. You feel. You change the story. Dance can do that. Dance lets you float above it all. It lets you play in the clouds. And when I Dance, I want the audience to play with me. To Dance in the clouds, to feel what I feel. To hear my song.”
I felt like I understood myself better. As I’m sure every Dancer that watched did. I have replayed this scene 22 times now, to be precise. I have gone over the emotion in her voice and on her face like I intently observe the Dances I hope to Dance. I stare. I sob. I smile. I nod knowingly. I feel what she feels. I hear her song. It’s the same one that’s played in my head for very long.
It’s not a reel. It is the why and cry of our existence as Dancers. And I wish it will be understood by more. So that our Art will have the space, time and consideration to birth, nurture and honour more “Étoile”s, more stories and all the worthy basket cases mid-Dance on Earth (okay…slightly aloft, maybe!).
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