Small Moves, Slow Forming
Do it.
Do it again.
Shift the rhythm. The energy. The focus.
Keep plugging away, one tiny movement at a time.
I’ve always been in awe of those dancers who can just spin out a full phrase on the spot. Effortless. That’s never been me.
I work more like mental hopscotch.
Try something small. Love it. Forget it. Get annoyed. Move on.
Stitch a few things together. Move on again.
Come back. Circle it.
And eventually something starts to form.
It can be rough. It can be scrappy, like today’s video.
But it’s a start. And that matters.
This was my last session at Birnam Arts studio. Huge thanks to them for the space to explore. I knew I needed to leave with something. Anything to hold onto.
Before coming in, I had one of those chats with Lou Cope, our creative critical friend on Good Enough. Those conversations always leave me with a nugget to mine. This time it was about being alone in the studio and how hard that can be.
She brought me back to play.
To repetition.
To the idea that doing something simple, over and over, can tip you somewhere unexpected.
It took me straight back to reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. That point where repetition leads to fatigue, fatigue leads to mistakes, and the mistakes are where the good stuff lives.
At 56, it’s a different balance.
Warmed up enough. Tired enough. But not too far.
I’m learning to work differently. Less constant motion. More bursts. More rest. And in those rest moments, the work doesn’t stop. It just shifts.
I’m starting to find a kind of peace with that. Especially as this project leans into something more than dance. Narrative, objects, texture, touch. I can move between elements, follow the thread in different ways, and not feel like time in the studio is slipping away.