Back In The Studio...Part 2
Current mood: optimistic
Category: Art and Photography

Well really, this is part three. I had my third rehearsal for the new duet yesterday and it was VERY productive. I feel I have all of the parts of the puzzle, now I just need to put them all together. As always, at this point I sort of go through a music crisis. The music that I felt so passionately about for months, is starting to feel a bit not right to me. I've ordered some other music, that's a bit more contemporary and hopefully I can try it and it will work out. The original music is feeling just a bit to...big. Like it would be better suited for a bigger cast. The intimacy that goes along with creating a duet relationship on stage (at least that I'm trying to create at this point) deserves something that sounds a bit more intimate.

Thematically some interesting things happened yesterday as well. I invited my dear friend Tommy Parlon into give me some feedback on a section that I had just created. He brought up some interesting points. Eye contact, where it does and doesn't happen and why that is and proximity. This particular partnering section, Kristie and I are always attached at some point and it ended up creating these moments where I look at her or she looks at me, but we never really see each other. Tommy warned me of that...but you know, I'm kind of ok with it. Isn't it true that sometimes you think you are really close to someone, but you don't truly see each other?
~Megan

7:11 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Back In The Studio...
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Art and Photography

"When I was very little - twelve or thirteen - I used to go home, lock myself in the room, put on music, and improvise until I fell on the floor exhausted. That's how it all started. Later, because of insecurity, and lack of experience, you try to prepare yourself thoroughly. You don't want to be exposed. But as you get older there is more to fall back on. As I get older I prepare myself physically much less - I mean as far as vocabulary and steps are concerned - because I want to give the creation a chance…..

At the moment of creation you have to give the creation a chance to take place. And to give the dancers the opportunity to take part in the creation is as important as the creation itself."

Jiri Kylian, Dance Magazine, November 1994, pg. 60

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't wait to get to this point in my creative life. Currently I am working on a duet that will be performed in NYC this December. I am dancing with my dear friend Kristie Schaffner and I wish so much that I could have the resources to have another dancer, but alas I must be in the duet as well. It's been a long, long time since I've created anything I've been out side of. What I mean is, when you are in it, it's so hard to look at what you've created with an objective eye. Luckily I have a brand, spankin' new camera that can at least sort of help me in that respect. I'm trying something new with this duet. I've been coming up with movement phrases and I'm hoping that organically from working them over and over, the peice will sort of evolve out of my original idea. Usually, I am game plan Sam. Every moment I carefully think about and plan, but this time I want to let it surprise me. Inspired by this quote above, I'm giving up a little bit of the ownership I usually keep so guarded about my choreography. I'm asking for help from Kristie, and she's graciously offering it up. I'm also trying not to be afraid of the movement that just comes out of my body. I usually think things through so much and end up over-analyzing movement until it either a: doesn't exist anymore, or b: I think it's just mundane and stupid.

I've been told by a few people I have worked with that I am a "beautiful mover". I'm not trying to be egotistical or anything like that, I'm just trying to find out who I am in this respect. I don't feel that this whole choreography thing comes as naturally to me as it does to some people I know. But if I can just harness that "thing" that seems to happen when I'm not paying attention, but other people are, maybe I can turn it into something. I'm not a big fan of improving, but I've been doing a lot of it lately. Whether it's in my bedroom randomly, in the studio thinking about things, or even in performance. The last performance I did (in collaboration with visual artist Matthew Harwood in his studio at the Torpedo Factory), was very improvisational. I tried really hard to only give myself just a rough outline...something extremely hard for me seeing as I am a total control freak. Arming myself with what I thought was a pretty good idea, a few key places to be at certain times and some extremely fun props, I just simply trusted myself and went for it. You know...it wasn't half bad! People seemed to really enjoy it.

So now that I'm in this place, I've decided that it's really time to go to graduate school. I need to be in a place where I can experience my own movement, dance every single day, and have the LUXURY of being outside of my own "choreography" (what really would rather just call movement). I really feel that I am in this crazy nexus of being creatively ready, emotionally ready, financially ready and physically ready to do this. Let's just pray that this sort of feeling lasts until next year when the actual work starts.

~Megan

1:51 PM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

The Weird Al Experience!!!
Current mood: excited

I am the dancer on the leftmost side of the screen. We choreographed this that day and had a blast performing it! Weird Al and all his peeps rock!








A little after the show laugh/treat!

6:48 PM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

New Growth
Current mood: contemplative

My pretty flowers.









Mike and I went to the big city this past week (NYC). I was glad to come home to a beautiful surprise. My gardens are in full bloom.

11:46 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Mike the hubby EXTRAORDINARE!!!
Current mood: satisfied
Category: Blogging

I have to dote on my awesome husband for a minute. He's been working very hard for the past few years trying to finish his degree while working full time to support all of my endeavors as well. It's recently come to light that he will be graduating Magna Cum Laude from UMBC in May. Also, he just got a great recommendation to (and received interest back from) a company in Baltimore called T. Rowe Price. He hopes to join their graphic arts team after he graduates. It's a little more corporate than he sees himself persuing for the long term, but it's an AWESOME start and I hope it works out for him. Part of the reason this is so awesome is because he's always been sort of a late bloomer. I think that his parents sort of lost a little bit of faith in him, when it became apparent that he was not going to be on the average schedule of graduating high school, going to college, getting your degree, etc. But he's proved them all wrong. After 12 long years of struggle, he's massively on top of things and I'm so proud. Watching him go through this program for the past few years has really enlightened me. He's gotten so much more out of his degree than I ever got out of mine. He also really coming into his own as a designer. I can only hope to be the kind of student he is when I decide to further my own education. I spoke with his mother the other day to tell her about all of this. She was so shocked I think she almost dropped the phone. It turns out he hadn't told her about anything! He hadn't told her he was graduating with honors, he hadn't told her about all of the success he's been having in the department, and he hadn't told her about his possible job opportunity. She was so happy, I thought she might start crying. So he is over at her house right now (I'm stuck at home sick, no fun), talking about announcements, class rings, and graduation parties. For him, I'm sure it feels like a bit much, but for her it's something that I'm sure she never thought she'd do. I'm so happy to be along for this ride!

8:25 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Today.
Current mood: indescribable

A fire destroyed a house today.  It was the house of my husband's best friend's parents.  He practically grew up there.  I watched as the boys brought out what was left after the fire fighters had doused the blaze.  Not much was left, a few pictures (thank God), some personal effects.  The dog died, and we burried her.  We also burried the rabbit with her.  Everyone was there, and we all cried.  Looking at the house, it was like watching our childhood go up in flames.  The boys would go in clean, they would come out soaked with water and dirty from soot.  The news cameras came, and we sent them away.  I looked at them all like young children, instead of grown men with wives and little ones.  I saw them running in the back yard, doing things they knew they would get in trouble for.  I saw them all come together, without question, to help. 

It made me realize I am not ready to leave this place.  We are a family, our bonds go way past friendship.  Some of us may not see each other for long periods of time, but we love each other.  We've been here so long.  These men and women are our brothers and sisters.  We are a community, and we are needed. 

3:06 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Funny!
Current mood: giggly

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

I don't know why...but I find this hilarious.

~Megan

3:23 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

What I never thought I would be.
Current mood: content

So I come from a long line of teachers.  My grandmother taught middle school, my mother taught english at a business school and eventually became dean of that school, and now I am a teacher. 

I swore up and down for the past ten years that I would never become a teacher.  I don't like teaching kids (or should I say, I didn't like teaching kids), and I never considered myself to have the level of education necessary to enter into academia.  Two years ago I was introduced to a lady who would literally change my mind about everything I had felt.  This was a time in my life where everything was coming together.  I had been through the gamut of everything bad life had to offer, and I was coming out on top.  I had just gotten married to my angel husband, and I was really coming into my own as a dancer.  I had tried so many different jobs to "supplement" my dance career, and needless to say none of them worked out for the better.  My dancer friends had tried over and over again to find me teaching jobs, but I stood steadfast in my conviction to hate teaching.  Finally I met Lynda.  Lynda Fitzgerald runs the dance program at Anne Arundel Community College.  While I knew that my credentials were enough to teach at Community College, I just never saw myself there, but Lynda did.  Reluctantly, I applied for a job there, taught my audition class, and secretly hoped that it just would work out.  Maybe I wasn't ready for the responsibility of teaching.  Maybe I wasn't confident enough in my leadership skills.  Maybe I was just plain scared.  I felt like a neophite, compared to all of the other teachers.  I am younger than them, with what I felt was a considerably less amount of experience.  I found out later that my professional experience was nothing to laugh at.  It turns out, I have done pretty well for myself thus far.  So with all the nagging little doubts in the back of my mind, miraculously I get hired. 

Lynda fills me in on the course I will be teaching:  Introduction to Dance.  With such an innocuous title, I figure...how hard could it be?  WRONG!  It turns out that Intro to Dance is a combination of lecture and movement.  I have to teach dance history (by the way, a subject I almost failed the first time I took it, ended up dropping the class, and had to take it AGAIN before I got credit).  I find this to be an incredibly ironic situation.  So I start my research like...a month before the class starts, because I have to completely re-educate myself before I have to speak to students.  I have everything planned out pretty much down to the minute of each class, and I make a vow that I will stay organized.  Well of course, none of that happens.  My first lecture was sketchy at best, and my time management skills, I learn, are sorely lacking.  Then the biggest blessing I could have ever asked for came along:  they now need me to teach a second section of the course.  At the time...I panic.  Then I realize, teaching a second section really gives me a second chance to refine everything I am teaching.  It was a godsend.  My poor Monday students got the worst of me, and my Saturday students got a much more calm and prepared version of me.  Ironically at the end of the semester it was my Monday students that gave me the best evaluations. 

So that brings us to now.  I just started my second semester at Anne Arundel today.  I felt so much more comfortable and organized this time around.  I even had fun giving the dreaded ballet lecture!  I really didn't ever see myself doing something like this, let alone enjoying it.  I found last semester fulfilling, but I can tell that this semester is going to be even better. 

9:20 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

A new version of one of my old songs...
Current mood: indescribable

So I decided last year sometime...that I wouldn't sing anymore and that I would totally devote my time and energy to my true passion which is dance.  Well my wonderful friend Penn did this for me...which is making me reconsider my decision :o).

http://www.blogbaltimore.com/uploads/10_minutes_ago.mp3

"10 Minutes Ago" was the song I was most proud of.  I wrote it at the culmination of a few very difficult years.  Penn has re-mixed it into this sort of ethereal electonic version of itself.  And I love it!  It's the first time I've loved this song in a few years.  God how I wish there were more hours in the day, and not to mention dollars in the bank so I could do all of the things I want to do. 

7:46 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Ok, so I've tried this several times...
Current mood: dorky

And it hasn't worked!  So I'm just going to paste this link, and hopefully you will find this as funny as I do.  This is a video that was taken a little over a year ago.  It was my last performance with my band, Atomic Brown, and hopefully you will appreciate my hilarious friends as much as I do.  Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihpmmw7-5mw

ps-I tried to embed this in my profile, and it totally wouldn't work!  What am I doing wrong?

pps-I've lost 10 lbs since then.  Just wanted to say that, sorry!

6:08 PM - 7 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment