Looking for a title and finding you
on how to write the first letter
Hi,
Where to begin? I'll describe the scene: LoFi Girl plays in my ears; a friend I’ve had since 1998 quietly reads a book behind me; my mom is taking my dog, Hester, for a walk. I’m in Paris. The weather is fucking glorious. It’s a time of transition. This is my first letter.
My first idea was to call this letter “Dear Dancers,” but it felt like that would exclude the many of you who have subscribed who are not in the dance field, or who are in it but do not dance. I thought to myself, well, if I call the newsletter Dear Dancers, the first post could be about how everybody is a dancer. Saying everybody is a dancer is a bit like saying everybody is a singer. It’s a nice thought. We are all bodies in this world, in motion, emoting, expressing, keeping track of time, in dialogue with the wars, shootings, and extraction. That is what dance is.
I love dance. I love dancing, I love thinking about dance, and I especially love writing about dance. That’s what this newsletter is going to be about: dance. It is not only addressed to dancers - it’s addressed to everyone. Everyone is a dancer. It’s a super cringe thing to say. “Everyone’s a dancer” is like “live laugh love.” It’s a silly platitude. I wonder if a silly platitude is better than the more accurate statement, “not everyone is a dancer.” A sad thought indeed.
I’m a dancer - or so I told someone at a bar last night. I’m a professional dancer, in that I trained, I rehearse, I get paid to dance sometimes, and I do a lot of other things around Berlin’s dance scene, like dramaturgy. My most recent job as a dancer was for Nikima Jagudajev’s work “Basically,” held at Shedhalle in Zurich, a couple weeks ago. I love dancing her choreography because it’s so challenging and it makes me feel beautiful.
Another option was call this newsletter “something to do with God.” Something To Do With God. Lol, more annoying than “everyone’s a dancer” is saying this is a newsletter where I talk about Christianity and spirituality – but it’s supposed to appeal to everybody. I thought about strong titles like “CRISIS OF FAITH” or TRANSCEN-DANCE, but I’m not a writer for the Atlantic.
What I want to write to you, dear dancer, are my thoughts about dance and faith. I plan to extract bits from the writing I’ve been doing (hiding) on the topic over the past two years and share them with you. I need a more informal and personal space within which I can stretch out some ideas and, as my dear friend Melanie Jame Wolf says, “learn in public.” The venue is your inbox and the medium is text.
I think that dance can be relevant and inspiring, or at least enjoyable, to a lot more people than those who tell people in bars that they are dancers. That’s why this letter is addressed to everyone. But I am learning to not say that dance (or anything) is ‘universal.’ In Ezra Klein’s podcast, Tressie McMillan Cottom says a “thin description usually tries to flatten differences between experiences because it wants to tell you about sort of a universal experience, right, that I can make you understand your connection to something by pointing out what’s universal in it. We think that we’re going to lose people when we start talking about the differences…”
I’m afraid to lose you. Tressie is so right. If I share the things I think, then I’m leaving it up to you to decide if they are relevant, inspiring, or enjoyable (to you). It’s terrifying!
To me, dance feels big. It feels like it can be a prism for anything and everything, and also facilitates getting into the details, the craft, and the fine print of everything and anything. It’s so specific and it’s also something people do at a wedding. I would rather say everyone’s a dancer than say not everyone is a dancer. If everyone is a dancer, then we can ask other questions, like who is allowed to move and who isn’t?
One of the pillars of my faith is the belief that we are all held in God’s love. That love is at the core of me, you, plants, all the people and animals, in the air and water and in space and how big space is. It breaks my heart to say something like God doesn’t love and hold everybody. Or, God is not everywhere at all times. Where do I go from there? It’s the least inspiring thing I’ve ever heard. I am trapped in God’s love, or at least in the idea of a love that surpasses all understanding. I don’t mind being trapped here.
Last week I used a jackhammer and a circle saw, learned how to scrap metal, built a bike from scratch, and resurfaced the wall of the chapel at Performing Arts Forum by hand. It was so cool. Wandering around that big building after all the work was done - on our day of rest - I felt a way I have felt multiple times in my life but hadn’t felt in a while. We were in the cavernous, sun-filled attic, and I just wanted to live in every part of that building. I wanted to bring candles up there and have sex in every corner. I wanted to drag my body and a book to every nook and cranny of that cavernous space. It’s the feeling I get when I’m in a big inspiring building, like a church, or my old boarding school, or old castles in France I had visited as a kid. I want to lose myself in this house.
Anyways, I met a new friend, Storm, and there was a picture of us using the jackhammers together. Storm is also a dancer. As I caught a frisbee, she teased that I was landing my dramatic jump-catch the way one would land an assemblé. I yelled back, “I’m trapped in form!! No regrets tho!!” and we laughed. Then when we saw this picture, we were like UH OH TRAPPED IN FORM HAHA.
Note the straight backs, knees at right angles, how we are using our own body weight to exert pressure down, the composition of our bodies together, how focused we are on the task.
How does one name something that doesn’t exist yet? With the last newsletter I wrote, “A Thing That Feels” for my darling friends of COVEN BERLIN, it wasn’t until I stopped writing it that the title really landed. ATTF was A Thing: a container, a filter, a cipher, a framework, and an object through which all the feelings and impressions COVEN got in the month could be reorganized and shared. It’s simple now to realize that the process of composing those newsletters was the part that Felt. Now, I’m looking at a new thing, and while the words still flow freely, the thing is totally mysterious.
5, 6, 7, 8
It’s a bit like the film actor’s Action! It’s the ready set go. But it’s about music, rhythm, it’s about structuring time. I love dance that rubs itself up against time, especially time as punctuated by music, and kind of tries to defy it or run alongside it until it runs out of breath. I’ll share more next time.
~ Lil’ Announcements ~
I’ll attend the CAMPING festival at the CND in Paris from the 12th to the 17th of June and will doubtless be writing about the three shows I’ll see that week, so stay tuned for that! I signed up for the Crumping workshop with Émilie Ouedraogo – aka Lady MadSkillz aka Wounded. I’ve never crumped before. Just trying to get trapped in as many forms as possible I guess! Thanks Goethe Institute for paying for it all.
After 2 years of work, the Make It Possible Fund is finally live. The Make It Possible fund (MIP) is an initiative of Performing Arts Forum (PAF) designed to support people who are interested in working at PAF. In the spirit of redistribution and in an intentional, gradual movement toward equity, the fund gives explicit priority to those who are part of communities that have been historically discriminated against, oppressed, exploited, and/or excluded for colonial and neocolonial reasons. Coming to PAF with the support of the MIP means being part, by your presence and practice, of PAF's transformation.
Over the past year, PAF raised enough funds to support 50 nights at PAF. In the hopes of expanding and continuing the efforts of the MIP, we are asking for your support. Individuals and institutions are invited to donate to the MIP by making a one-time or recurring donation in a unit of days: 25€ supports one day, 175€ supports one week (7 days), and 700€ supports one month.
This covers accommodation, dinners as part of the collective cooking initiative, the possibility of using the PAF car, as well as some transport costs — to be determined for each person.
You can contribute by clicking the link below, or making a cash donation next time you visit PAF:
To receive MIP support, send an email introducing yourself to makeitpossiblefund@gmail.com, allowing at least two months’ notice before your intended visit. Kindly detail the support you would need to come work at PAF and the intended length of your stay. A rotating group of volunteers coordinating the fund will answer requests, allocating funds according to availability and capacities. Be reassured that we will respond to all inquiries in due time.
Until next time!
xo
Louise
PS: right before sending out this newsletter, the dancer Andrew Hardwidge suggested the name “dogs and gods” for this newsletter. Too little too late, Andrew. But it’s a fantastic name. DO I REGRET MY CHOICE? CAN SOMEBODY WEIGH IN??