So I made a resolution today that I would consider myself to be an Artist. This was due to a Train of thought..
Firstly an email from Marina saying that she was resigning from our Improvisation practice group. This makes me so sad. I love these people. I love our group. I love Marina's work. I love working with these people..
And this is after our triumphant show/event last Thursday night
She said that she had too many other projects on the go but I suspect that I have to bear some responsibility for her resignation. It all started so beautifully back in December in Andrew Morrish's workshop. There was some kind of magic between us. I felt it with Seke, Marina and Ceri most notably. There was a bit of a clash of personalities between Juliana and I but she said she thought it had great comic potential which is a brilliant attitude. Juliana also got the ball rolling and we arranged to and did meet almost every week from January through May up until the June 4th Show.
It really was joyous, a different emphasis with each session, Movement, or voice, or song, or narrative, or characterisation, we each took it in turns to decide on warm-ups and exercises and would always perform for each other in solo, or duet or trio depending on how many people in attendance. We always stuck to the Andrew Morrish rule of saying only what we enjoyed of our own and each others work, not bothering to criticise or try to change each others work.
I love doing this kind of work. I can be myself in all its permutations....unfortunately some of those permutations are fear of other people and a tendency to take on too much and to suffer subsequently high stress levels which apparently comes forth as anger and I've so little volume control or restraint especially in these performance contexts, as, repressed so long my moooooooods jump out LIKE JACK IN A BOX ON A VERY LOOONG AND SPRRRINGY SPRING.. quite understandably, this is rather hard on other people. The situation was exacerbated by practice sessions taking place at my place and too often everyone would arrive on days I'd not left the house but briefly or seen a soul and so my moods festering and waiting for the first person to erupt to and it would too often be them.. Marina suffered particularly as she has a delicate and sensitive personality that also seeks solutions, not understanding that being told you need therapy while in a state of distress is like salt in a wound that exacerbates the feelings of alienation and loneliness, especially when I tried to find a therapist for many years and had very bad experiences.. I think that everyone suffered, though they were kind, even Juliana who never understood my requests for her to stop making comments about my personality. I am definitely (over)sensitive in these performance situations and I realise that part of my path as a person and a performer is to find healthy places to put these emotions, these sensitivities.. I genuinely don't know how to go about this without help and understanding from people around me because they like me not because they pay but somehow I have to figure this out as it is nobody's responsibility but my own.
As I have an event at my warehouse space on the first Thursday of every month it seemed obvious that we would co-host an event as a group here and we did on June 4th.
The show was beautiful. The place looked great, everyone helped plan every element and insisted some money was taken at door, there was a warm up and then a complete run-through and suddenly (to me) it seemed so wonderful and various were the possibilities of this improvisational art-form. Then Juliana and Seke went to get the booze while Marina and Ceri and I fixed up the place (me getting lost in the spaghetti of my archaic and overly complex sound systems), then Ceri went out to get ElderFlowers while Marina and Seke and Juliana took a break (while I continued to battle with the bloody sound). The Evening itself was PERFECT from the performances themselves to the face disco to the arm-bandit confessional booth to the choir to the Elderflower fritters to the Egyptian dancing to the raffle to the audience and everybodies attitude.
I have done these things once a month since October 2008. They have been all great events but an increasing drag on my energy and time. Last month was particularly draining as we did 2 in 3 days and the collaborators were particularly un-collaborative.. Ceri spelled it out most succinctly when she said that everyone was helping in the creative side of things but no-one in the production and planning side. After that show I was also getting requests for this that and the other from left right and centre and it was simply too much. Being where I live and work, even with help these shows pretty much take over my life for between 4 days and a week and I don't get enough income from them to justify this much time out of my life.
When I expressed this to the group (in my usual...ahem..."relaxed"?... way) they responded beautifully and positively and said they'd do their best to ensure that the event went smoothly and I got the support I needed. I missed the session a week before the show and they made an arrangement to have the session 2 days before the show be at Greenwich dance agency. It seemed immediately obvious to me that this would not work for me and would not be appropriate as the event was to take place at my place. Knowing how much there was to do there was no way I was going to feel able to travel all the way to Greenwich and back and concentrate simply on a practice. Unfortunately I didn't seem to be articulately putting forth my point of view and in the group emails everyone kept agreeing that it was a great idea to meet at GDA. I was starting to feel insane as they had all assurred me that they would help and had queried that maybe I simply hadn't made myself clear enough when collaborating with other people. But, as far as I can see, I think that everyone had by then decided i was irrational and were switching off parts of their brains to me.. I had become the little boy crying "Wolf" I had "protested too much" too many times before (sorry to mix my storytelling allusions). I think that this happens a lot. A lot of what I say is quite reasonable, it is just sometimes said at times which are deemed innappropriate and in a manner which many people find rather intense and intimidating and just plain exhausting.. even the aforementioned therapists.
It wasn't until a few days later that Ceri said that clarifying thing about everyone feeling like they're helping because they're giving a lot of creative input- however that leaves all the production and planning to one person- me.. Golly I have to make special mention of Ceri's de-muddling positive knit-picking ability.. she really unpacks things and then builds them up in an uncluttered light. I tried to use this inspiration positively and eventually I persuaded everyone to come to mine for the planning session and it was an extremely productive meeting and I think that everyone could see now why I had been so insistent. Marina also said at one point "Wow, there is so much to do...". I felt acknowledged at that moment, that there was a possibility for understanding me, that my emotional states had validation. But her comment was a general one, not aimed at me (quite reasonably)..
I am evidently seeking emotional release and validation and need to find a way to this that neither hurts others or disappoints me. I know that all groups are hard but I am tired of feeling like a toxic element.. or is my problem that I feel like a toxic element..
Uncharacteristically Radio 4 led me out of despair this morning. On reading Marina's email I just felt an overwhelming sadness and self-loathing (because I never appear to be able to sustain long-term close relations of any kind and this inevitably makes me sad). I turned on the radio to give my thoughts a rest and saw that there was a programme about performance art. from that I spent some time looking at the work and writings of Tehching Hsieh and Linda M. Montano, and began to see a tiny chink out of my stupidcycle with their life=art attitudes. Obviously I havent cracked out how yet.. having not worked out an alternative yet to the confessional/therapeutic model yet.. but I've given myself a 21 day plan to lay a foundation for finding a way to Live and Love and Work and Create in the Positive way I bloody well know I can. I'm going to post this now because otherwise I'll be chickening out. Gotta go to SambaReggae with Catherine in Walthamstow now.. let's see how I'm doin' on my return
xooxxoxo Lucy
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