Chalmers Fellowship: memory, rejection, Butoh, the Titanic
In a Butoh workshop a couple of weeks ago I was reminded of dancing at Phil's and Club Abstract in Waterloo during my university days. About how I learned more about myself as a dancer on their checkered dance floors than I did in the studios sweating and crying my way through ballet classes. (Might sound weird to be reminded of this in a Butoh workshop, but maybe not so if you've ever taken a workshop with Denise Fujiwara/Fujiwara Dance Inventions). So viscerally I remembered how I used to feel dancing. It was all simmering and I was on the verge of art, of making real art for the first time. Some voice was at the cusp of me. Or I was at the cusp of my own voice. I was totally unconfident but I still felt promise and belief stronger than insecurity. Shadows came in. People close to me died. I moved to Toronto. I lived with my best friend from high school who, for me, was a swirling cloud of everything I was not and thought I wanted to be. I started in the Professional Program...