Every so often I re-evaluate where I am. This isn’t unusual. Everyone does it. Maybe this bout was brought on by nostalgia, by free time, by the weather. I don’t know. I’m struggling with motivation at the moment. With feeling like I’m motivated towards the right things. All too often I feel like my passions are selfish. I’m not certain how to explain that because I mean it on so many different levels. So I’ll pick one passion – choreography – and explain.
Personally
Choreography takes up an inordinate amount of my time. Time that is meant to be dedicated to raising my children or earning money to give them a better life. It doesn’t pay. Or it pays so little as to be borderline insulting. But I love it. I’m driven by it. It lets me collaborate with fascinating people. It lets me explore topics and attitudes that are difficult for me to pin to a page. It makes me a stronger, better person. So long as we are financially functional I can accept this degree of selfishness. Even if so many people in my life don’t understand it. It would be much easier if I were single. I’d do whatever it took to perform and choreograph if I were alone, but things are different with a family.
Globally
We can’t fill a theater. We can barely fill a row these days. I don’t like the idea of state funded art, but I’ve seen what sells. I want no part of it. Reality television and skimpy clothes. If I had all of my dancers take their tops off, we’d be rolling in tips (they are some beautiful women after all). Video dancing and flash sells. So we reach out for state and city funding. We look to foundations. We beg every person we know. For what? To put something on a stage that lasts for a matter of days and impacts maybe a tenth of an already tiny audience? I know this sounds defeatist, but I’m feeling defeated. Why do we create art? Because we have to? Because we have something we feel we need to say? I wish often that my art form were solitary, but is there ever really a solitary art form? Or is it merely that some forms are created in solitude? And truthfully aren’t they all? I choreograph on living, breathing bodies, but that choreography is born when I sleep, when I lie on my floor with the speakers cranked up to 10 until I can feel the music in my blood. Its born long before I show a step to a dancer. They refine and shape it, but its almost like they are editors. The first, raw words are crafted in solitude.
So what do you do when there’s no audience? When the hunting for funding starts to suck away the joy in what you do? When you feel like Sisyphus? I think like this and the ironic thing is it makes me want to create. But I wrestle with how long I can keep at this.
I tell other artists that it is a constant struggle, but its a worthwhile one. We’re doing something special and wonderful. But there is a little voice in the back of my head telling me that someday I’ll need to face reality. I just can’t tell if that voice is a realist or a defeatist. If its the voice I’m supposed to ignore or if I’m crazy to ignore it. Its not like I’m a master who can struggle in poverty in my lifetime knowing I’m leaving some gift for the ages. The work I create lasts for 3 days at best. So I wonder . . .
I have so many works in my head, enough to keep me working for years. And I see the images around my house and wonder if I’m going to get to see those works that aren’t formed yet, if images from those will ever hang on my walls.
Kristyn McGeehan 
This is a bit of a rambling answer – it doesn’t help with money or with people in seats, but it’s a point about the people that do see it and how it affects us.
Our lives are series of moments – and people would be hard pressed to define moments as critical or crucial or not. Some moments are so obviously life changing – others are not. Whether the people enjoy seeing the art or not, it is a moment in their life of divine impact. Yep, often only lasts 3 minutes, but those 3 minutes make people think, dream – even if they really don’t like it, the are really aware of why they dislike it for hours afterwards. When you have been to a gallery and seen a painting that really hit you or disturbed you, you only looked at it for a few minutes, but those moments are some awesome part of your life. And though that painting lasts forever, you may never see it again. It was those small moments when it just plain got to you that mattered.
So yeah, though it takes you months of work and maybe only an hour onstage, I’d say that the time I spent watching – those moments were a crucial part of my life. For making me think, or love or hate or just bask in beauty. For making me craft a story out of the moments you gave me.
You certainly aren’t alone in the confusion over what to do with That Voice. I think that is one reason why it is so important to keep in touch with other artists for support when That Voice becomes deafening. It’s certainly been very loud for me since I’ve made the choice to try and go after this full time. Right now, I am treating it as an annoying voice that is there for me to challenge and prove wrong.
I think we do this because some part of us must do it. We can feel the discordance in our hearts and spirit when we aren’t perusing our talents and passions in some fashion.
I wish I could form what I want to say about the money aspect but words are failing me at the moment. I love being able to do my art, however I also love having money for bills. I don’t buy into the whole starving artist thing. I sometimes feel bad that I have to go back to office work to cover me between gigs while I am in the process of trying to do this full time.
Love you lady. Talking with you and others helps me stay focused and positive. Thank you for that.
I think part of it is how much you want your art to affect others. Or how broadly, if not deeply. Sometimes we create art just to revel in the creation – sometimes we need others to see and feel and be moved by it. It’s that second part that helps push through the financial woes. At some level, I think you want to share your creation with others, and that motivation to share will keep driving you to deal with the difficulties. It’s like setting an early alarm and getting your family up before dawn to see the sunrise – you want to share something beautiful with them and are willing to deal with the difficulties because the rewards are beyond worth it.
Maybe you can keep listening for other ways of sharing. Videos don’t have nearly the same kind of feeling of connection with them, but maybe there will be a way to merge your creations with that kind of media in a better way in the future.
I was thinking the same as Adam in regards to videos. The world is much smaller than it used to be, thanks to the internet. Views may not get you money (or maybe, depending on ads), but it will get your work out there and seen.
But know too that I live on that other side of the coin from you… I long ago opted for art to be a hobby-thing rather than a living. The choice was easier for me, perhaps, given my earning power in my career, but it still hurts whenever I have to consciously say no to creating because of work stuff. And it’s why I have completely insane bouts of scrounging every possible second to make a D*C costume, or last minute LARP weapon.
Bottle it up long enough and you either kill it, or it tries to kill you.
Yes! Mike and I made opposite choices in this regard. Initially we were reversed because my career had more earning potential. Its why I didn’t go back to dancing until after the kids, when I was already so far out of the work force that I was struggling to get back in. Neither choice is easy and neither is wrong or right universally.
I do want to look more at film. Dance on film is difficult. You lose a lot. But its a project I’m kicking around in my brain.
I think everyone has covered my thoughts on this, save one metaphor: Your dancing and choreography is like a painting, and the audience is the ornate frame around it. The frame does not change the art, it merely enhances and amplifies it. However, the painting remains, even without the frame, and is every bit as beautiful and unique. The colors are just as bright, the brush strokes still as delicate and meaningful, and the content remains just as pointed and powerful. The frame is merely something to support the art, not the focus of it. Your dancing and passion will always exist with or without an audience. You do it because of the fire and creativity in your heart, not because you seek acceptance or a standing ovation for your performance. Those things are wonderful to have, but they are not required for your outlet to be exactly that… an outlet. I know that an audience is required to rent out theater space, but please remember that those people are merely the frame set around your special work of art… they are never the reason for it, nor the purpose…