Putting On Your Big Girl Panties
Creating a new work is one thing, and traveling to a new country for the first time is another. Putting both together in a blender with a group of under-22's creates a wild ride that leaves the participants asking for someone to throw them a rope. Nope.
Stability, structure, and all those things we associate with home, university, and the English-speaking world is dissipating. What do we do?
Do we hold on to what we knew in Philadelphia, in our warm home with supportive mentors, and stable, strong work patterns that we can rely on?
Or do we embrace uncertainty, believing that something else is out there, and feeling excitement for what our work will become?
Well, we built this tour and participated specifically in the fringe to execute the latter. That is what fringe is for. You may pull out your hair, you may feel uncomfortable, it may not put you at ease. That is the price we pay to see something totally new.
I’ve never been one for sameness, structure, stability, or roots. Being in a new country will always ignite me, and challenge any thought structures I’ve built. Digging into what is ambiguous, making work that changes thought patterns, work that changes every night, doing live theatre, and daring greatly are old friends of mine. You should be scared. Spontaneity is the thing.
And everything here is more difficult. OK. We've learned that, now what do we do?
There are a few options:
Cry profusely.
Ponder your existence.
Not go outside.
Youtube how to turn on your shower.
Make art the way you’ve been doing it.
Ask yourself if hand soap even exists, or if it's just a fallacy made by American capitalism.
Or adjust--
We adapt, we become more flexible, we accept spontaneity because we must to move forward. We do or we're no longer fulfilling our duties as artists of live performance.
Our will to create has never been planned. Following impulses, improvising, and simply listening are required in this game, and now it applies to not only making choices on the stage, but about choosing which street to walk down, talking to that one artist you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of, and taking care of yourself.
What if not everything goes my way?
American privilege, the privilege of being educated, and the assumption of having anything handed to you had to go away real quick.
We lose sleep. We shower less. We rehearse in unconventional spaces. We learn the language, lose props in customs, do our homework. We have differences. We get frustrated. We do the work. And with all of this, we must keep asking ourselves: are you down?
