I am emerging
I am mid-career
this is the last dance I will ever make
there are too many people in the room
I can’t do this alone
I need to be alone
I know too much
I don’t know enough
there is no dancing left in me
still
moving I think in a way I can't think any other way
I should do something else
I should be making money
I need to attract people with money to come see my work
there is too much time in this creative process
there is not enough time
there is a dancer in the room whom I will never work with again
do painters dream about shades of pigment?
the dancers
carry fragments of my psyche
I need their opinions
I reject their opinions without explanation
no one in the room understands what the work is about, least of all me, until years later
that was it
a string of mis-starts and discarded ideas
where it began is irrelevant
beginnings are crucial
the fragment the whole the beautiful etcetera
saturated
desire is embarrassing
(a famous director says)
embarrassment might mean I'm doing something right
it might also mean the work is bad
anything can be made interesting once you deconstruct it
some movements are inherently boring
clichés can be avoided if inserted into the right frame
the joy in flow
the joy in stillness
slow down the dance needs more space
people who come to rehearsal say the work has no logic
yes that
thing needs to be interrupted
and that
other thing needs to last forever
the material has become too fixed too quickly
too shape-based too legible
but that one moment--
it is not legible enough
-H.M. May 2017
Photo by Margo Moritz