Explosion Of Creativity

This past weekend has been a roller coaster. Possibilities, excitement, doubt, a sense of being utterly stupefied. My future is at a huge, huge crossroads right now, and I'm still kind of on the fence about which path I'm taking... I've almost decided, but not quite...

Given this huge rush of excitement and the swirl of thoughts racing in my mind since Friday, I was pretty much rendered useless (just ask my mom). Until yesterday...

Since National Choreography Month, I've been slowly working on choreographing a ballet for White Heart's Montana Sky (very slowly), but I hadn't worked on it in a good week, or maybe more. Yesterday I decided I really should put in some effort on that thing already so I can move on to something else.

So I got my clipboard with my work-in-progress and notes and my pencil and eraser and sat down with my iPod. I didn't really want to do choreography yet, so I thought I'd relax and listen to a couple of other songs first.

So I listened to some Undercover, and then I started on my Daniel Amos collection, all three songs of it (don't freak out, I haven't converted to country -- these are Alarma Chronicles tracks. Good, decent rock). The first song on the list was The Double, from Doppelganger.

As I listened, my mind, as it almost always does when I hear music, started to picture a stage with dancers on it, trying out concepts and moods and disciplines and movement/formation ideas. As the song went on, I began to notice that some of the stuff in my head was really quite good and began to pay more attention to what my brain was coming up with so I could write it down later.

But as the song drew to a close, I realised I had to go back and write it down now, or else I would forget everything -- and it was too good to risk forgetting over the course of the upcoming song. I paused the iPod, grabbed a fistful of blank paper off my desk, sat down, restarted the song and began to write.

One idea led to another led to another led to another as I connected the dots of the pieces I'd come up with on the first listen, and three hours later I had completed the dance. Start-to-finish. Four minutes' worth. For either three or six people (it would work either way; I haven't committed to either one yet).

And get this -- in tap.

Until yesterday, I could barely choreograph more than sixteen consecutive tap counts for a song before stalling out. And here I just sort of poured out an entire four-minute piece in three hours. It was surreal watching my own writing devour the blank pages so quickly -- one... four... six... seven...

I'm thinking the co-existing heights and depths of excitement and terror surrounding and consuming me since Friday had something to do with this explosion of creativity... No matter, I'll take it. And here's to many more tap dances.