With the end of year approaching, schools and studios are having their end of year performances, and I have found myself repeating the phrase, " if you forget the move or make a mistake, it's okay. Just keep going," a countless number of times to my students. As a teacher, I've found it easy to say this because I am aware that the choreography in its entirety is more than just that one part, but most importantly, because I know that the skill of getting back into the choreography after making a mistake is more valuable than working to be perfect all the time. As a student, I feel the need to perform perfectly the first time, and if not, to start all over again. It's wild how different the perspectives are, based on what side of the studio I am standing on.
This past weekend, we were shooting a video for a project I was a part of and I remember blanking out for a second. I froze mid - dance and immediately asked if we could start over. Upon starting again, a similar thing happened to a different dancer. One of the instructors then informed us that because there were so many of us partcipating in this project, they would pick specific parts of each of our takes for the final version; therefore, even if we messed up we could keep going as they would select an alternative part to work with. It was such a relief to know this and surprisingly, or not so much so, the next take was completed seamlessly, and without interruption.
Could this perhaps be the secret to thriving in this world of dance, and maybe even in life, generally? To just "keep going", mistakes and all? The teacher in me is nodding affirmatively, while the student in me is feeling skeptical, because it sounds too good to be true...too simple of a solution. It makes sense to desire perfection when you've been working on the same thing over and over again. Your perfection, in this case, is seemingly expected from everyone, including yourself. However, one of the many things I'm learning is that because life will always happen, no matter how much you practice and rehearse a certain thing, there's no gaurantee that it will always be perfect. With this, the solution cannot be to erase everything and start all over again each time a mistake is made. I have been humorously surprised to find that I can choose to keep starting over in hopes of achieving perfection and still make mistakes each time I swing at it. So dancer friends, if you're like me and you strive to always get it right the first time, here's your reminder that we will go off track, because... life, but what matters most is that we get back on.
Keep creating & sharing!
~your dancer friend
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