flexibility 101...

If there is one thing I have learned being an artist, it is that one must always be flexible! You can never get too attached to your ideas, or else, you will be many times disappointed and unprepared to welcome new circumstances and opportunities for learning into your sphere of being.

I am reminded of this today in two situations...

Today Brett and I continue to edit towards a satisfactory draft of our documentary, Art For The Living. As I have mentioned in entries past, the ending has been sending us for a loop. As it turns out, there are not a lot of usable shots and it has been difficult deciding just what to keep and what to let go of. As the editing process goes on, we both have ideas about how the cuts should be made. On occasion, we misunderstand each other, and become frustrated. Brett plays devil's advocate at times, and at other times, he calls upon his expertise behind the camera and on the editing table to help me see the best solution to the moment's problems. Though it is not my nature, I must constantly remind myself to relinquish some control, so that we may truly collaborate on the project. And when I do, I am open to solutions I may not have understood otherwise. Today we finally make it to the end! There is still a lot of work to be done, but the general structure of the film has been achieved.

Second on the list today was my rehearsal at NSCU. There are new faces that were not at yesterday's rehearsal, and some arrive late again today. I have been informed that I will have one less day to prepare the piece than I had originally expected. What's more, at Saturday's rehearsal, our final rehearsal, two girls will be an hour and a half late, one must leave two hours early and one cannot come at all. That is half the cast! Today, I make a determined push towards finishing a good deal of the piece. As I work through some of what has been rattling around in my head concerning the piece, I discover that some of it does not work in real life, and that some of it is just anticlimactic. As I look forward to Saturday's rehearsal, I have already begun to plan how I will deal with choreographing a piece for more bodies than I have to work with, and how I will change some of the phrase work I have added today to make the piece more dynamic in certain places. I am also taking many mental notes as to what the abilities of each member of the company are, so I can continue to create material that is appropriate to everyone's level of experience. Certainly not the situation I had expected to walk into upon accepting this gig! However, I aim to keep a cool head, and allow myself to continue to walk through my artistic process, even if it is being somewhat squished.

~Cara