The fallacy of destiny

[Jill Hockett]

One thing that I've always disagreed with all my life is the statement relating to performing arts, "if you can picture yourself doing anything else, you shouldn't be an artist." I've heard this from Broadway style tap classes to my avant-garde college workshops. It seems like such a prevalent idea, I wonder who DOESN'T believe it.

Am I the only person who thinks that's absolute bullshit?

First of all, it's completely impractical. Unless you're a full-time company member of the New York City Ballet or something, you're going to have to be a dancer/something, and I don't mean a dancer/choreographer. To live, to survive, one must be a dancer/choreographer/waitress/entrepreneur/babysitter/arts administrator/office temp/designer/PA and so on. If you want to be an artist, you had BETTER be able to envision yourself doing something else.

Secondly, it seems incongruous with the nature of art and performing. If you can envision yourself on stage with body paint, glitter, and a loud costume doing movements far from the everyday to the beat of an experimental international composer....is it really that far off base to imagine yourself going to work at 9am? When I see a performance, I don't want to see performers present themselves as their everyday selves, I want to see performers who are discovering new aspects of themselves. Whether they're dancers discovering ways they never thought their body could move, or actors discovering aspects of their inner beings to connect with a character, or performance artists discovering new possibilities of what they can get away with on stage, this discovery to me is a major part of what makes a performance thrilling and compelling. Who says the only thing you're allowed to discover about yourself has to be performance and art related? Can't you discover new professional possibilities and still feel like like you "should" be an artist? If your job as a performer is to transform yourself in front of people, shouldn't you be able to transform yourself into a non-arts career and then back again?

It's not a secret that it's hard work to make art in NYC. If the role of artists is to question facets of life and culture....shouldn't they question their own life and the culture that they're making? If an insightful artist can think critically about the world around them and create something new and original, I don't see why they "shouldn't" be able to think critically about the rough life they've cut out for themselves and consider the pros and cons of throwing in the towel and changing career paths.

Ultimately, it seems like a sentiment invented by artists afraid of considering the possibilities- they didn't have any other choice, they HAD to be artists. How silly and self-righteous. You always have a choice.

[Rob Divine]

That sounds like something someone says when they win American Idol, or So You Think You Can Dance! Wholeheartedly agree. I've done other things all my life (financial sector, technical field etc.) Yet I call myself a dancer. The whole point of dancing a "role" is envisoning yourself as a character other than yourself. Sometimes, with a stroke of cosmic coincidence, you find something in that role that you can internalize and some of yourself shines on through. But that role isn't you. Its not really meant to be. If we didn't picture ourselves doing other things, we'd all be making dances about dancing. Dances about dancing are utterly boring (never liked them and wouldn't pay good money to see one.)

On a semi tangent, a few years ago I almost gave up on this second career as a dancer because I felt like, if after 1000 auditions if I couldn't attain my "big break" this ode to joy should mercifully be put down. Well a former DNA teacher (Yael Levy) told me: You can't give up dance because its not something you do, its something that you are. 10 years later that I can wholeheartedly believe. Theres a part of you that belongs to this crazy religion after you've made the investment of sweating on the marley floor. No matter what the hell else you do in your life.