Week #10 Artist in Residence
I don’t know why but I feel slightly frustrated and emotional at the same time that this is to be the end of this phase of my research and development at the Courthouse Arts Centre. My impatience is driving me towards booking a dance studio and exploring the ideas and information I have accumulated. I feel my gut is screaming at me ‘JUST DO IT’. I feel I have procrastinated too long with regards to my creative expression and how I wish to tell stories, how I wish my voice to be heard. I just watched a wonderful TED talk with choreographer #Wayne McGregor and he named it for me #physical thinking, that’s what I need to explore. I am so tired of words having to describe every detail of our lives, bombarded with information, social media all day long, We require so much literal translation for everything it seems and I want to revolt against that. I want to be set free from the confines of thinking, mentally, I want to physically think for a time and teach others how to do it, collaborate with others and realise that inner world screaming at me from inside.
I am nervous, afraid if I am honest as I am not a choreographer, a trained dancer but my wish is to choreograph and find people willing to work with me. You see my desire comes from a pure place, it is a genuine need, a desire to connect the inner world with the outer world, it is a desire for me to guide others and shape a world we created where the audience are very much welcome and will be encouraged to kinesthetically respond to the work. I want to create art. I want it to be a feast for the senses. I want to know how to take the next step. I need to physically think my way forward.
I have explored to my fullest ability the first phase of this work and the mental processes involved in gathering ideas and stories and inspirations and now it really is a matter of being vulnerable and opening myself up to others, collaborating with others and not fearing judgement or critique or ridicule. We all have to start somewhere and I can visualise a very exciting road ahead where I am constantly listening to those impulses, those soft whisperings guiding me, gently leading me by the hand.
I have felt fully supported by Maggie, Artistic Director of the Courthouse Arts Centre and all the staff here during my research time. The people I have come into contact with in the community have aided my discoveries and made me more curious about the place I live in. I started out with a need to engage with people and have found myself at times fully engaged, at other times I am hidden away in the Green room, like now, typing vigorously, making sense of my thoughts. I want to continue to feel fully engaged and learn through engagement, develop my arts practice, help others to discover their creativity and think differently about themselves and the world. Become a physical thinker.And courage, I need courage.
‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—
I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.
-Emily Dickinson