Changing Performing Arts Mentality
If there is something I’ve learned this past year it’s this:
Embrace change.
Remember that change comes in many forms: a pause, pivot, step back, a leap, and ,in my opinion the scariest and hardest one, letting go.
That last one especially weighs heavy on many of the artists and performers I work with as well as myself since last year I decided to venture (pivot) into a different path in my career by shifting my attention towards the theater and live performance industry. Albeit almost declared dead at the time by many, and despite multiple people advising me not to go into it, I believed it to be very much alive and ready to take steps in a new direction in search of creating a better version of itself. Much like many of you, this meant letting go of what I was accustomed to in my daily work — working in a bubble where I felt comfortable and I had proven successful, now also facing its own challenges — and step into a new unfamiliar environment. While I possessed the skills and mindset to hit the ground running, the unfamiliarity of this new terrain and the newly risen obstacles in the industry due to a pandemic closure made this leap even harder.
Although terrifying at times, and fully knowing that it takes time to adapt and furthermore succeed, I accepted the challenge and decided to embrace the change. After all, if I may be fully transparent, I come from a mentality that “We all have to eat shit some time.”
But it’s the attitude with which you face those days, the grit that pushes you to do it again, and the toughness you come out with that builds you up and gets you closer to your vision, dream, goal.
Over the past year I am sure many of you have asked yourselves “Why”
Why continue on hoping? Why stress out so much?
Why prepare for an industry that has no timeline for return?
Why do I keep working my body to the ground in an industry that feels like it doesn’t value my body?
Why work so hard to stay fit if that only validates a broken image-based industry?
Why jump into an industry that seems to be stuck in old ways of thinking and doesn’t show internal value for the health and proper preparation of their artists athletes?
For my part I can say that the main driving force behind my “why” is addressing rooted issues in the inherent approach of how training is viewed in the theater and performing arts industry; its roles and its benefits for dancers, actors, and singers alike. It’s incredible to me that an industry as socially responsive, culturally and historically rich as this one, lacks the activism and initiatives to prioritize the care of the human bodies that it is built upon. Especially when its performances are known to continuously ask the human body to move and perform tasks nearly athletically impossible over and over and over again.
In conversations I have had with many performers about their upbringing in the industry a reoccurring theme continues to pop up: from its youth the performing arts industry prioritizes performance above all pain and injury and establishes rewards based on image first then talent. Thus, early on planting a volatile seed of self-image by lowering the artists’ bar of self worth and self-empowerment and making it an acceptable norm, an excusable part of the industry engrained from the very beginning.
Today, I believe this industry to be ready to grow again; surpass where it was a year ago.
It is visible in the artist and performers who still believe in it. In the resilience shown by fellow artist friends, who like other performers like them, have used multiple platforms as their medium to share their art and continue their growth, as well as showcasing the strength that comes from enduring a vulnerable state, embracing and accepting change, and turning it into an opportunity to reunite, speak up , and innovate.
In the next months with the industry’s upcoming return I hope to be here to provide my current clients and future clients the support, safety and knowledge necessary to not only empower them during their performances, but also cultivate the value of their bodies and health in order to continue being astonishingly talented artists on and off stage.
I hope to help shift the focus from the PERFORMANCE ONLY back to the PERFORMER.
Last thoughts I want to leave you with:
We all have to fail and struggle before we get better.
So…
I hope you fail. I hope you fail more than once.
I hope you cherish your failure.
I hope you grow from it.
