Going for a ride

From my journal archives:

Fun fact I learned this week: In movies, when there's a long scene with actors talking in a car that's driving around the city, sometimes they like to control the cars you'll see behind the hero car.  So there's a "follow car" whose job it is to stay directly behind the hero car.  My job this week?  To be driven around in the follow car getting a tour of lower Manhattan while listening to an AD tell stories and watching pedestrians turn to stare at the tricked-out-with-a-camera hero car containing two of the biggest movie stars there are.  And this of course took multiple takes because staying directly behind another car in Manhattan isn't exactly the easiest thing to do.  So the driver more than earned his money handling all the "we're turning here!" and "go straight here!" last minute directions that came screaming through on the AD's walkie (punctuating the AD's calm storytelling and overall calm demeanor and efforts to make sure the driver understood that not getting in a crash is far more important than staying behind the hero car), and the pedestrians walking in front of him, and the cars cutting him off, and the expletives hurled his way, while we just chilled in the back seat, looking out the window and chatting about one of my favorite shows the AD worked on....  Gosh this industry is weird sometimes.

The Case Against Potential

Recently I was struggling to fix my out-of-whack double pirouettes to the right on pointe... which I have the potential to do perfectly, and am totally capable of landing cleanly, but which have recently been off-balance and inconsistent.  A couple other dancers were watching me and giving me technique corrections to keep me from falling off pointe three-quarters to a half turn too early.  As I took the corrections, working my way back to doing something that I've been able to do correctly since I was 15, I was frustrated by the thought that I knew I knew how to do it, but I just wasn't....  One of the dancers stopped giving me technical corrections like "hip down," "head to your left," "plié more," and just told me to stop making the turn work so hard -- to just float it and make it easy.  I did, and I landed it cleanly.  It made me think of something one of my NYU teachers this summer said in class: "I'm not a fan of potential.  Potential just means you're capable of doing something and you're not doing it.  So just do it.  Don't have any potential."

 

It seems like from an early age we're trained to think of potential as something we need to hold on to and maintain in order to grow.  In gymnastics, we had to take flexibility tests.  I remember one time I maxed out on mine, actually going beyond the measurement system they had, so I should have scored 100%.  My coach bit his lip, thought for a moment, and said, as he recorded my score, "Okay, 99.  Very good."  I argued back that it should have been 100.  He said that wouldn't leave me with any potential to grow.  I asked him if I understood correctly that 50% meant getting halfway to the objective standard that had been set, and if 75% meant getting 3/4 of the way there, measured in centimeters.  He said yes.  I then asked him to show me, in millimeters, what that 1% I wasn't getting on my score was.  He couldn't.  "You reached the goal."  Right.  So I should have gotten 100%.  I had no potential to score better on that particular test, as objectively set, and so they shouldn't impose some false obstacle keeping from me getting to 100 in order to preserve my "potential."  In fact, by saying I couldn't get that 100 now, he was actually saying I could never achieve the 100, no matter how well I did; so then by that standard, I had no potential anyway and nothing to work towards.  Had he given me the 100, I could then have clearly seen on my score sheet the areas I actually needed to work towards, like strength to compensate for my over-extension, rather than working just to work on something I could already do perfectly.

 

Potential isn't some glorious thing you need to hold on to in order to grow.  Achieve the maximum you're capable of.  Work towards what you haven't reached yet.  Score 100.  And then change the measuring system and go beyond your potential.

Take improv in high school

From the archives, September 2014: 

When you're just an extra on a film and then someone grabs your hand, pulls you over to the star of the film and tells you to sit down, and the actress chats with you a bit, and then all of a sudden they stick a boom mic in front of your face and you have to improv a scene with her in character with nothing but a 10-second explanation of the plot up to that point to go on.... That's the moment I wish my high school speech class hadn't been the one class of that course not to cover improv....

But hey, now I've done improv! Both in an airport ( http://www.behindtheseen.me/2014/12/mr-hueni-would-be-proud.html ) and in a dialects class....  So I think I'm good if this scenario ever happens again....

I really really really love what I do

An archived journal entry (from June 2014) within an un-posted blog entry (from February of this year).

June 2014:

Gaslight Anthem band member to me as I exhaustedly gulped down water during a brief break: Hey, great job!!

Me: [continuing to gulp down water and looking behind me to see to whom he was talking]

GA band member: [chuckling] Yeah, you.  I'm talking to you.  You guys are great.  You're fierce.

The unglamorous reality of working as a music video dancer: Three hours of sleep before a ridiculously early call time to sit in hair and makeup for an hour and a half, most of which time is spent holding your breath to avoid breathing in the zombie makeup being sprayed on you, followed by being instructed not to sweat while dancing insanely fast and athletic choreography on concrete in 90 degree heat, the unsuccess of which (the not-sweating part, not the dancing part) results in people running in between each take to dab sweat off you and retouch you and aim air conditioning hoses at you, not to mention periodic offers of double-sided tape to hold your very limited clothes in place....  Throw in ending the day 15.5 hrs after call-time with exhausted group-freestyling with the nine other dancers in fake snow for multiple three-minute takes, two minutes of which on every take you're blind and trying to hold your breath because there's snow in your mouth and eyes (and yes, there was spitting happening during takes -- better not pirouette on someone's loogie)....

....But then you're standing there under the bright lights as the track starts to count in and the lights start pulsing and there's an amazing band in front of you and cameras rolling and you and the other dancers collectively find an energy that physically shouldn't still be there, and the band tells you you're all amazing (complete with the above interaction, which put a big smile on my sweaty zombie face) and watches you when they're not in the takes and applauds, and then the lead singer starts doing zombie makeup retouches on all of you once he's wrapped and makes you all laugh.... And that's when, as you're standing there sweaty and dirty and every muscle in your body hurts and your brand new ballet shoes don't even have toes in them any more, you involuntarily grin and think you have the best job in the world for this one day.

----------------------

Feb. 27, 2015:

That day on The Gaslight Anthem's "Rollin' And Tumblin'" was one of the most grueling, difficult days of work I've ever done -- and also one of the most rewarding.  Last night at their sold-out NYC concert, I had a reaction that surprised me: As I stood in the balcony looking down at the floor that was jam-packed with fans dancing and completely loving the music, and as I felt the balcony moving with the crowd's movements and listened to the teenage girl next to me (whose dad was taking her to this concert and both of whom loved their music so passionately) gush to me about how much she loved their new album, I actually got a little misty-eyed thinking of the fact that for that brief time, I was part of the machine of the band that created this reaction.  When I stage manage, I don't really get to see how an audience is affected by the show.  If there are tears or smiles, or soul-reaching moments and connections, I don't see them.  Even as a dancer on stage, though I can feel the audience, I can't normally see them.  So standing in the balcony watching that crowd completely give in to the music -- watching the magic, electric sparks that flew between the band and their fans -- was a unique experience for me.  And thinking that I was a small part of their creation for a moment -- their creation that was causing all those fans below me to completely lose control of themselves -- that was one of the absolute coolest feelings I've had in my time here.

Image source: "Rollin' And Tumblin'" music video, directed by Emil Nava, copyright 2014, Island Records, Inc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy8hLP3SFkk

My birthday present to me

It's my birthday.  Which means that rather than posting something eloquent or witty, I get to just post a bunch of links and things that inspire me and make me happy and move me and that I think make the world a richer place.  So here are some of my favorite things (and just some things I've wanted to post but haven't because I haven't been able to find an excuse to...) on my own personal Thanksgiving day....

My family:

Gene Kelly, Julie Kent, and Ethan Stiefel in everything ever. But since everything ever is a lot and I'm not going to try to get anyone to click on a ballet video, I've picked just Gene Kelly singing and dancing in the rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmCpOKtN8ME

Lindsey Buckingham giving 100% and then some when he plays:  (Here, "Big Love" solo acoustic)  Inspiration for never phoning it in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZZp76M4NGc

That time that Jim Leyland, then-manager of the Detroit Tigers, wanted a home run from the second batter in the lineup of a must-win playoff game, and, for no rational reason, thought the mediocre-hitting utility player Don Kelly (multiple-time winner of the Heart & Hustle Award, but zero-time winner of any award that measures objective productivity) would be his best chance at getting that home run, and so put Kelly 2nd in the lineup that night.  Kelly hit a home run.  Inspiration for achieving more than your potential.

This:

 

The importance of bubbles and swings

 

My fiancé, who took this photo, and who never says no when I ask if he wants to go swing and blow bubbles with me.

 

Esther The Wonder Pig, for her love of life and ability to find pure joy in the smallest moments, and for all the beautiful pig souls she's saved through making people fall in love with her and realize that pigs are just big (really really big) pink dogs. https://www.facebook.com/estherthewonderpig/videos/vb.506496949457534/777960652311161/?type=2&theater 

 

That wonderful guy in a suit with a thick New York accent, who, when NY1 interviewed him on the street and asked what he thought about all the recent train crashes, responded, "Try not to think about it, I mean, ya know? You wake up in the morning, ya know, you take a scat....  So, uh... You know, it's a crap-shoot -- life in general."   

 

Remember when I said I wouldn't try to get anyone to click on a video of ballet? Yeah, I lied.  Click on this one.  Seriously.  You won't regret it.  Proving classical ballet can be funny... and proving just how incredibly difficult corps work actually is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsRNDo8Upys 

 

Bryan the barbados sheep, because his bouncing can brighten any day... And because depending on the day, he thinks he's a pig, a human, or a horse... But rarely a sheep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X5cSx_RaMU 

 

Iain Thomas's writing, which can make sentences that are fuller than many poems:

 

“There are a million ways to bleed. But you are by far my favorite.”

― Iain Thomas

“But life isn't something that should be edited. Life shouldn't be cut. The only way you'll ever discover what it truly means to be alive and human is by sharing the full experience of what it means to be human and each blemish and freckle that comes with it.”
― Iain Thomas

“Maybe you're one of those people that believes that sometimes, the most reckless thing you can do with your heart, is not being reckless with it.”
― Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

And this:
“Joan of Arc came back as a little girl in Japan, and her father told her to stop listening to her imaginary friends.

Elvis was born again in a small village in Sudan, he died hungry, age 9, never knowing what a guitar was.

Michelangelo was drafted into the military at age 18 in Korea, he painted his face black with shoe polish and learned to kill.

Jackson Pollock got told to stop making a mess, somewhere in Russia.

Hemingway, to this day, writes DVD instruction manuals somewhere in China. He’s an old man on a factory line. You wouldn’t recognise him.

Gandhi was born to a wealthy stockbroker in New York. He never forgave the world after his father threw himself from his office window, on the 21st floor.

And everyone, somewhere, is someone, if we only give them a chance.”
― Iain Thomas

And Donald Duck. Because no one's life should be without Donald Duck.

When you're on the "at this performance" insert in the program

When your costume fitting, spacing rehearsal, and first time with the almost-full cast for a ballet all take place the day before the performance (in a studio, not on stage), and you never run the show with a truly full cast, or on stage, or in your costume, until 8pm the next evening in front of an audience, and you learn at said spacing/run-thru the night before the show that you're being added to a piece you weren't supposed to be in, in which you have to wear a mask that results in you having no peripheral vision.... That's when you really really really appreciate the fact that swings and understudies sometimes have the most difficult jobs in theatre.  Oh, and my first quick-change (never rehearsed) I was kind of nervous about making in time.  I finished just in time, was like "Yay, I made it!", went straight on stage, only slightly tripped on my dress one time when I was on my knees (not bad for having never rehearsed in it), was thinking, "Gee, this is cut awfully low in front. I don't remember it being that low at my fitting yesterday.  Good thing I have a black leotard as a base," and then came offstage, where one of the other dancers took one look at me and said, "Your dress is on backwards."   ....I once stage managed a show where an actor put his pants on backwards in a quick-change during a performance and came on stage like that without realizing.  I laughed and laughed and asked how he did that without noticing..... Dude....I totally get it.

Just another day at work

From one of the days on location at an airport on the Non-Stop shoot:

My day today: changing into costume while standing on a table above three inches of water while wardrobe hands me articles of clothing; armed guy in suit "escorting" all cast and crew to and from bathroom while people look on, probably trying to figure out if he's our bodyguard or we're his prisoners (I still haven't figured that one out); having my bag stolen at the end of the night/morning and then eventually found by some of the fantastic crew guys, by which time my real clothes had accidentally already been packed on a truck while I was still wearing my costume...; and in between it all, filming a movie and making a living by playing dress-up and make-believe....  I might not always know where my paychecks will be coming from next month or what type of job I'll be doing to get them, but I'm so glad that if someone asks me how work was on any given day, I can never, ever, ever say, "Oh, the usual."