Oh, zee drama

Another great pic from Pedro Romano, taken at Temple of Eden. I am being all dramatic, oooooh.

Ok, here's the thing... I'm not good at talking about feelings. Every now and then I'll sit down at this blog and write a deep post about issues in the community, or my struggles with dancer's block, but in general I approach things with a thick veneer of sarcasm, self-depreciation, and downright smart-assery. I am not good at letting my guard down and letting people in, so I am especially not good at really showing my true emotions on stage.

That said, I can really connect with a song, and I can really show my passion for dancing. People react pretty strongly to the solo that the above picture is from because I just feel that song so damn hard that it shows. It's very emotional, but it's mostly positive emotions.

So this brings us to next week's Open Stage and my special challenge for it. I have to dance out some of my feelings. I am still struggling a bit with the loss of my friend Marilee. It's weird, because I've never struggled with a loss this much, but I've also never lost someone that I talked to almost every day, and who had given me lots of little things (beads and books, mostly) that I see around my house all the time. I think this sadness is one of the issues that has really kept me from being inspired to dance lately. I was talking to Jolie about it, as part of a gripe about how little I've been dancing at home lately, and she suggested that I work on something for Open Stage that would express those feelings. The funny thing is that I almost did so for the last Open Stage, but it felt too raw.

I have a song tentatively picked out, a song that has a small connection to my friend -- it's a song I like, but also a song that was used as the theme for a TV show she told me about, one she really enjoyed and which I would watch too, when I got a chance. And it's a beautiful song, a song that feels like floating, flying out, reaching towards a goal and never quite reaching it.

But I am scared to do it. I'm really scared of stepping out onto the dance floor and baring my soul to a bar full of people, people who range from my fellow dancers to my gaming friends to random people just out for a drink. I mean, what if I start crying? I feel like crying on stage would be the most awful and awkward thing ever.

For most of my dance career, I've focused on dance as entertainment -- either as a way to entertain myself, or an audience. And over the past year I have stepped out of my comfort zone a little bit, trying moody and sad music, but not music that actually made me sad. Not music that had any real deep meaning to me. To take that leap from entertainment to performance art, to try to make people really think and feel, it's a little scary. There's more chance of failure, more vulnerability. And I just don't do vulnerable well.

We'll see how this turns out. It may be beautiful and therapeutic or I may end up crying in a bar bathroom.