I’M struggling and I’M not alone
I’M struggling and I’M not alone
By Meghann Michalsky
February 21st, 2021
Let me preface that this is a rant. With lots of built up frustration. I usually don’t share things like this, I prefer to let my work speak for me, but almost one year into the Covid-19 pandemic, as a contemporary dance artist, in Alberta, Canada, it can make you do crazy things. This is where I am at and I’m concerned.
I have always found starting a new year to be an exciting time; envisioning how the year will go - with the freelance contracts I have already booked, and ones that will be booked last minute, what opportunities I will apply for and receive or not receive and how I want to push my craft and my body. But this year is different. Everything is a question mark, nothing can be confirmed and it’s not simply uncertain and uncomfortable - it’s anxiety triggering.
It feels as though my job, career and identity have been dismissed and diminished into a mere hobby. This has taken a toll on my self-worth more than I could have imagined, not to mention my income that has been almost cut in half.
One of the only things that has and will ever help my anxiety is dancing. It gives me the ability to let go, abandon and dissolve my fears and doubts that are carried deep within my body and mind. I think what has bothered me the most is that our profession, my art and therapy, is not deemed essential.
My process is my therapy. Art is therapy. Healing happens in a process.
My process saves me over and over again.
And that is essential. And I know I’m not the only one.
In the beginning, it was almost fun to have a break, to heal from years of burnout, learn more about myself, and experience my dance practice through an online platform. But now, it’s too long. I need my identity back.
As a freelance dancer, not knowing when the next gig will reveal itself, comes with the territory. But there’s always some kind of momentum within the season. But now the momentum is hard, if not impossible, to feel. Many of my colleagues are searching elsewhere for work – as most of the part-time jobs that we usually can count on to make up any financial shortfalls, have been irregular or are gone. There are also discussions amongst my peers that the absence of practice and performance has made us curious about going back to school or investing time to learn other skills to receive more work, or moving away from dance completely. I have been considering this too and honestly, I know this is a coping mechanism because we’re unsure and scared, but this scares me more.
The contracts I have pencilled in right now will be dreams come true and push my career where it needs to go, where I’ve been leading it. But it’s only around 170 hours of work, not enough to live on. Again a mere hobby...
All of these unknowns are creating so much uncertainty in our very small corner of the arts community and it's leaving me with the question of: what is my purpose now?
As a freelance choreographer, I am always adapting—like so many others—there's never enough funding, resources, or personnel. But now the very parameters in which we make work and the aesthetic of the work is being affected and needs to be altered. I personally don’t want to make a work that stays in a square, that doesn’t have physical touch, or that isn’t physically rigorous. I understand that new information and research will come out of these parameters and that could positively affect my practice, but regardless, my point is that it feels forced. After presenting a work for an online audience as a dancer and choreographer, I know it’s not even close to the same sensation, and it doesn’t fulfill my desire or even come close to the joy and passion I used to feel. If I can’t have the full sensation of my job, do I want any of it?
What is booked – or shall I say ‘pencilled in’ doesn’t even have a contract yet. Everyone is too scared to give or sign one. Therefore, all of it may be cancelled or postponed again at any time due to Covid-19. And by postponed, it’s not a few months, the presenters are quoting 2023… If I book flights for my pencilled in tour, and then it’s cancelled – the airline won’t give me that money back – they will give me a “credit” and I am responsible to pay back the travel costs to the granting organization… Thanks funder – I’ve only been out of work for a year and if I could afford that, I wouldn’t need your funding!
Those of us pushing to create dance opportunities during this time have the intense burden of responsibility. I feel a lot of pressure to ensure everyone’s safety from the virus while in the studio. I can do all the safety precautions recommended but at the end of the day, a cast member can still contract the virus. Just like a hockey player has during their return, and they have access to testing every day and millions of dollars to play with. We don’t have that luxury. The dance pieces I will be working on involve touch, there is no way to social distance, and it doesn’t make sense to alter touch out of the piece. So is the work and opportunity “relevant” enough to risk one of the performers contracting Covid-19? That is a heavy responsibility to weigh, but what is the alternative? Do nothing? Who gets to decide what is relevant? Why can sports, shopping centres, movie theatres and all of these things that have been open in Alberta on and off prevail, while we’ve been shut down?
We can’t continue to be on pause–it’s been a year now, how do we push play? We need to continue because this isn’t a hobby. We have work that needs to be done. I need to start saying yes to risk, and to let go of the fear because this alternative isn’t manageable for me anymore. The crisis of losing my identity needs to end before I make career choices that I wouldn’t have otherwise made.
We recently saw that the Dance Studios for kids in Alberta got loud and now they’re allowed their return with certain restrictions. This is hope. The professional freelance community needs to do this. We need to get louder. We can argue and state our case. How much financial loss do we endure? How far away from our practice do we get? With so much time away, how hard will it be to begin again? It’s wishful thinking that certain aspects of our art form won't stay collapsed for a very long time even after our return. And how many artists will we lose to uncertainty and fear of the future?
I don’t have the answers but let’s brainstorm together! I need to be essential again!
With sincerity,
Meghann Michalsky