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Are You Still Immersed In The Process? How Content Culture Can Cap The Artist

 It felt so good to move, undulate, and slide into a deep second position to recoil into a contorted contraction. It truly felt like breathing. Surely, I adore codified technique. However, taking a contemporary class last night taught me way more than I bargained for. Get out of your headspace, get out of the mirror, ditch the "content concept" and just dance. I reckon that is my honest thesis. I felt like Jodie (without my Cooper) as I whisked across the floor. Throughout class I thought about the likes and wisdom of dancers like Robert Battle and Matthew Rushing. While dancing, I recalled both of their sentiments that included abandon and connection (to the floor, to the movement, to the work...) while dancing. Truly, I felt that. Suddenly, I am met with a challenge. Maybe it's culture or maybe its Maybeli — nope! It's definitely culture.  For about one minute, I wrestled with walking off of the floor, grabbing my phone, finding a proper angle to record, propping...
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Why Your Race Should Be Irrelevant

 Kill your obsession with race. When you build a career on the pride of your race, that is as far as you will go and you will always be within those limits. The limits you place on yourself are the ones you will be confined to, one way or another. At times this is the case when you hear of artists being outraged by not receiving the recognition they believe they are deserved. I know I’ve written on this topic extensively but I am willing to bleed this racial monster in the industry dry if only for the sake of the younger dancers who are evolving. 

In another writing of mine I explained how there was a time when I was not exposed to race or potential racial barriers that I could be confronted with. It was not until I took a second to recollect, I found the source of my eyes being opened to it all. Unfortunately, a lot of black institutions and organizations groom black dancers in the woes of their race. Your training somehow will include a preparation of the mind that gets you set to receive improper treatment from those who are not black. Unbeknownst to you, your mind is being warped. That is top tier toxicity. 

If you’re going take pride in anything, let it be detached from the most minimal part of you. I know most people don’t see it this way but the more you carry your race in every project, every company, every stage, every training program— the more you will perpetuate your isolation. There is a difference between standing tall in who you are and wearing your race as a badge of honor. It’s a trap. Kill it. 


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