So the show is done. The project is done. My roommates have all left, and it is just me by myself in this apartment. With some Mac and Cheese keeping me company.
I have been giving a lot of thought to how I was going to explain how everything has ended up so far. Needless to say, it did not go as I expected. However, I should not have had any expectations going into it, and this does mean that I had a bad experience. I learned how to have the courage to speak my mind, though, and in light of that I feel that I should be completely honest in everything that happened.
I was extremely disappointed in my time working with Jose Navas. Extremely. Look back a couple entries at when I mentioned being upset. Basically, I was trying to dance for a man who was only inclined to latch onto a handful of favorite dancers and only feature them in his piece, shoving the rest off to the side and barely allowing them to dance. In any other situation, this might not be such a big deal. In the event of Springboard, however, it is important for dancers to have a fair amount of exposure performing onstage for the fact that most of the audience was supposedly made up of directors, choreographers, talent scouts, and other members of the Canadian dance scene.
For me this ended up being a bit of a roller coaster. First day, he loved me. Second, I came in poorly prepared and did not remember parts of the choreography that we had learned the day before. Dancers, be warned: WHEN THIS HAPPENS TO YOU IT SUCKS. So I was pulled from a lot of (read: most of) awesome-favorite-dancer parts. Over the next few days, I had to continuously bust my balls to win his good graces back, and become featured again. It was none too fun, but a serious learning experience.
Jose Navas creates his work with a method that he calls “The Machine.” The dancers are given a phrase of his that mostly consists of come chaine turns, rond de jambs,and some tombe-coupe action (think basic modern vocab). Then, he arranges the dancers in a small, tightly-spaced groups, and designates one or two of them as the “anchor.” The Anchor’s job is to execute the phrase as given. All of the other dancers around are to create movement that compliments or vaguely resembles the anchors’ choreography while partnering or remaining in physical contact as much as possible. What results is a very confusing jumble of dancer’s who are all executing their own choreography. The resulting clusterfuck is then inserted into the work with no further development. Basically, he leaves it up to the dancers to do all of the work. How this is considered a creative or collaborative process is beyond me.
In the beginning of this adventure, Jose asked us how many of us (be they male or female) had experience on pointe. Of course, I raised my hand, as did most of the girls and all but one of the guys. The other guys are the kinds of dancers that are nice enough, but they have those super sick legs and feet that I have no other choice than to kind of hate them deep down. Those who know me well, know that I do have much to brag about from the thighs down. I knew what I was capable of, and decided to go for it. I was also the only guy who already had a good pair of pointe shoes (Yes, that is a shout-out to RP).
The other guys decided that they would get fitted, but waited a week to do so. In the meantime, I was doing the work to figure out the movement on pointe (a lot of turning, and up until recently turning on pointe was NOT my thing). I had this feeling that the other boys had no clue what they were getting into. Sure enough, when they got their shoes they were falling all over the place and for the most part were barely able to get en pointe in proper alignment and lift themselves up properly. After a few minutes of that embarrassment, Jose told them to take the shoes off and not worry about doing the piece en pointe. I realized this only after I had asked one of them about his shoes when I noticed he had not been rehearsing in them. After he explained what Jose said, he capped it off with, “Well, at least I got a free pair of shoes out of it.” WHAT?! Jose BOUGHT those shoes for them!! They got free shoes for lying about what they were capable of?! And they still got featured, and rewarded, and treated well, and job offers?? I was officially over the edge. I was taking this to Alexandra, the director of Springboard. Of course, when my shoes were dead as well as a lot of the girls, there was NO offer of compensation or shoes. Not for the dancers who actually DO the work.
I was also pissed that he started making job offers to some of the boys really soon after starting the work. He even told one of them to not bother coming to his audition because he was guaranteed a job. During rehearsal one day he brought in his company manager, and they had to go outside of the studio one at a time to talk to her. I found this to be terribly inappropriate to do while we were trying to work on our choreography and take notes from his assistant. I just wanted to say, “Dude, I get it, you’re looking for guys. But can we do this later? Really?”
So, when I had the opportunity I sought out Ms Wells and gave her my problems. I was a little worried, because some of the girls went to her about being not featured in the piece we were working on, and apparently the conversation did not go as well as they had wanted it to. However, when I brought up the pointe shoe purchase and the job offer thing, she actually agreed with me. She gave a possible perspective about the shoes, but she said that he was breaking a rule that the companies have to agree to before participating in Springboard: that no job offers are to be made until the Sunday AFTER the program ends. Technically, that is today as I write this.
So my task throughout this mess was to redefine what my true goals were, and redefine what being successful at it meant to me. Seeing people get a job who are not true artists, but simply because they happen to be valued by someone else does not equal success to me. I still learned an AMAZING amount from my teachers here and the other choreographer I worked with, a genius by the name of Julian Barnett. With experiences I have gained here, I have learned a new way to push myself, to accept what happens in my life, and to have the courage to make myself heard when necessary.
I took the longest walk around the city today, and it really tired me out. I am also a bit sunburned. Jean-Pierre comes again tomorrow, and I plan on seeing more of the city with him. There is also a party next door, and I am debating whether or not to attend. In all honest, it seems unlikely. After all, it is almost two in the morning, I will still have more laundry and packing to do, and I am le tired. Good night.
