When did we start being afraid to look foolish in front of other people? Children don't worry about that. They play and dance and imagine themselves to be other people, animals, inanimate objects, whatever and they don't give a crap how they look. There must have been some moment when I was completely free, in the moment, and playing around where someone laughed at me and told me I looked stupid...that I was doing something dumb or that if other people saw me do that they'd think I was insane. Clearly, it was a moment of vulnerability and in that moment, I cared. What on Earth was I thinking??!!
I have been trying for a few years to quit caring about how I look to other people because I was aware that it was inhibiting my creativity but I was unable to have any sort of breakthrough. Fortunately, I got accepted into a graduate program that encourages me to just let that go. And you know what? I have! One of my classes is a West African Dance Class and I can see myself in the mirror. I don't (yet) look very natural doing it and I gotta admit...I look pretty silly. But I don't give a shit. It's fun! It's freeing! It feels great to be silly. There are two people in the room playing drums and I just feel the rythym and do the moves they tell me to do as best as I can and it feels great!
Today in acting class, we had to do an exercise called the "circle dance". The teacher put on music (some old soul Mowtown kind of stuff) and one person gets in the middle of the circle and just expresses through movement what they're experiencing. The people on the outside of the circle help support the person in the middle by experiencing it with them and giving all of that energy to them. This is something that, in my undergraduate years would've had me feeling soooooooo uncomfortable. But today, I just had fun and let loose. It certainly helps that I am in a particularly supportive environment for this (other performance related places are, sadly, more judgemental) but I am hoping to learn how to carry this over into my personal life.
I want to encourage you to not be afraid of looking silly at the expense of experiencing joy or fun. If you're letting loose and someone laughs at you or says you look silly...I say fuck 'em. Who the hell are they anyway? Just keep having fun. Hell, why not moon them when they say that? That'll either shut them up or get them laughing as well.
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