Last week, on a dark and gloomy Tuesday in late February, Alison and I were feeling particularly stuck. We were supposed to rehearse - but we were feeling uncreative and uninspired. That's when Alison said to Karen, "Let's meet at the park!" I could think of a thousand excuses, "Oh God, it's too dark... It's cold...I'm in my work clothes...I'm tired..." But, I didn't say anything. And we did it. We met at Sunset Park just after the sun had gone down.
One of the things that we have found will really jumpstart our creative juices when we are stuck in a rut is to play. It's hard to play when you are an adult. If we want to do yoga we go to a yoga class or if we want "learn" to dance we go to a dance class. We almost never just experiment on our own. We want someone to teach us or guide us. We feel we aren't disciplined enough to have our own practice or knowledgeable enough to learn a certain move or string of moves. But no one knows our bodies like we do. We are our own true experts!
Alison and I will sometimes choreograph by just improvising to Joe's music. We'll let the music move us for a while until we get into the groove - until that little part of our brains that is constantly judging us quiets down. It quiets down because we go into play mode. We laugh, we do things that are definitely awkward and probably look pretty stupid. We goad each other and challenge each other. Joe will change the music up a bit to remind us to move differently. Ninety five percent of what we do is really just playing, fooling around, experimenting... but 5% ends up being a gem. A tiny bit of gold that we can keep and then grow into something else. Sometimes we'll video ourselves and then watch the video over a Margarita or two, laughing, hoping to find something that will inspire us.
And, sometimes we'll go to different places, a park, the woods, our kitchen, or a bridge to explore movement. The change of scenery tricks our minds into coming up with something new. And it tricks our minds into temporarily throwing away judgement, because if that part of our minds is on alert, then it becomes impossible to create anything.
Playing is easy if you don't think about it too much. It's simple, productive, and it can get you out of a February, winter funk!
One of the things that we have found will really jumpstart our creative juices when we are stuck in a rut is to play. It's hard to play when you are an adult. If we want to do yoga we go to a yoga class or if we want "learn" to dance we go to a dance class. We almost never just experiment on our own. We want someone to teach us or guide us. We feel we aren't disciplined enough to have our own practice or knowledgeable enough to learn a certain move or string of moves. But no one knows our bodies like we do. We are our own true experts!
Alison and I will sometimes choreograph by just improvising to Joe's music. We'll let the music move us for a while until we get into the groove - until that little part of our brains that is constantly judging us quiets down. It quiets down because we go into play mode. We laugh, we do things that are definitely awkward and probably look pretty stupid. We goad each other and challenge each other. Joe will change the music up a bit to remind us to move differently. Ninety five percent of what we do is really just playing, fooling around, experimenting... but 5% ends up being a gem. A tiny bit of gold that we can keep and then grow into something else. Sometimes we'll video ourselves and then watch the video over a Margarita or two, laughing, hoping to find something that will inspire us.
And, sometimes we'll go to different places, a park, the woods, our kitchen, or a bridge to explore movement. The change of scenery tricks our minds into coming up with something new. And it tricks our minds into temporarily throwing away judgement, because if that part of our minds is on alert, then it becomes impossible to create anything.
Playing is easy if you don't think about it too much. It's simple, productive, and it can get you out of a February, winter funk!
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