movement journal | january 22, 2025

[unedited]

For years now, I have been trying to untrain myself. But I didn’t realize at first that that’s what I was doing. This coming September marks my 40^th year of “trained” dancing. Of course, we know those first years aren’t necessarily training. But they are. They’re the early stages of immersion. They’re indoctrination. The rules of the technique are introduced and set, and you’re expected to try to abide by them. And they aren’t just the rules – they’re also the measuring stick. The more you abide, the closer you get to perfecting and progressing your abilities and strength and fortitude to work within those rules, as they become even more and more specific, maybe even more and more unrealistic, the “better” you are, the more you are valued and appreciated, the more in the spotlight you become, the more special you are, the more worthy you are. It becomes the thing that you focus on and work toward. It shapes your body and your mind. It shapes your world view. It shapes how you measure the things and people around you. It shapes how you measure yourself. Those rules and that training become your reference point for everything. It determines what you like and what you don’t like. It determines what feels familiar and comfortable (even when it’s uncomfortable or even… unhealthy) and what feels foreign and wrong. Quietly, you become – in accordance to a system that you never even realized was shaping and molding and determining almost every part of you.

I used to LOVE this idea of training. Of striving toward perfection. Of having a clear goal and working toward it. I wanted so desperately to be “good.” To be “virtuosic”. To be unreachable and unattainable. Now… I hate it. I hate it with every part of me. It feels like a cement block chained to each of my legs. “Oh, she’s so well trained.” I don’t want to be fucking trained. I don’t really even want my dogs to be trained. I sure as hell don’t want my kid or my partner to be trained. And I don’t give a damn about being “good.” What does that even mean, anyway? Good – says who? By what measure? If that is my aim, then all of this means I’m putting some outside set of rules, of order, of ideals and goals and assessment before myself. Or… that I’m stuffing myself into some very specific box.

In terms of dance and movement, much of my training has meant that the way that I move is not the way that I move. It’s the way someone else has moved – the someone or someones who codified the form. Someone who said, “This is the way that this should be” or “The way that I WANT it to be.” “This is the way it should look. The way YOU should look. The way that it is acceptable. The way that YOU are acceptable.” …within this system… within this framework… within this structure… within this community… within this field… within this world…

For many years, without much thought or question, I shaped myself according to someone else’s perspective, values, and priorities. Now, sure, there are certain things – certain ways of moving – that exist within particular dance/movement forms/techniques that feel absolutely, organically, inherently natural to me. Often, those are the things that have dictated what I’ve been drawn toward. They are the things that have dictated what I have excelled in. They are also often the places and forms that feel to me to be more accepting of individuality and difference. But sometimes the things, the ways of being and moving, that are natural to me – some of the ways in which I exist in and move through the world that are a fundamental part of who I am – have made me considered “not good” or “bad” within particular dance/movement forms/techniques. Or at the very least, that I don’t quite fit. And that is insane. How is who I am, how I move, or the way that I exist in this world bad? And not just me, any of us… ALL OF US. Who says? How do we not fit? Screw that. We exist, therefore, we fit. Everywhere.

In times past, I pushed away and denied so many parts of myself for the sake of my “training.” There were so many things left unexplored, undiscovered for so many years. So, I have been untraining myself for a while now.

I do not want to be trained. I want to be free. I want to be me. In every moment. As I change. As I cycle. As I age. As I grow. As I become…

And what does all of this mean especially at this moment in history? While we are in this polarized existence of extremism politically, socially, culturally, technologically. When different groups have very different and very distinct rules and conceptualizations of reality. When people have been trained and have trained themselves into very specific frameworks of how they see and operate in the world. When technology and AI and tech billionaires have permeated every aspect of our lives through collected data and algorithms and ARE TRAINING US to think and behave in very specific ways that are to their continued benefit and interest, especially in terms of their POWER, their MONEY, and their CONTROL.

I feel like every moment of my life is now a radical act of defiance… even down to my choices in my moments alone in the studio. And it feels fucking muddy. And it feels confusing. And it feels overwhelming and disorienting. But the pressure to be clear and calculated and strong about it feels more important than ever. But then, maybe that’s what I’ve been indoctrinated to believe? Maybe that is something I need to untrain? Maybe these radical act needs to be muddy in defiance, confusing in defiance, overwhelmed and disoriented in defiance? Fuck this ideal of being “pulled together” – that’s just more of that bullshit idea of perfection. And none of this is about being perfect. It’s about getting out there and DOING.