I have really been loving learning more about ATS and really digging into those roots. It's beautiful, it's powerful, and so much of what I have wanted to inject into my dancing but didn't quite know how. As soon as I started exploring it I started feeling it, and I feel it has been a good path to take for me.
In my teacher training this past winter/spring, Carolena stated that she doesn't see why anyone doing tribal improv should want or need to do anything more than what she has already created. She feels the dance style is whole and complete as it stands, and anyone wanting to do it needs to adhere to that. With due respect to this incredible woman I am coming to know and respect even more than I already do, my being rebels against this assertion, and feels counter to what it means *to me* to be an artist.
To me, this is like someone saying "You can paint pictures, but you can only use these paint colors, and these brush strokes. You can only paint the Approved Painting Styles on this specific Approved Canvas and cannot deviate from that. Why would you need to do anything else? This collection of colors and strokes is whole and perfect and needs no changes. Though if you wish to add to our palette, you must first get approval from me on the colors and brushstrokes, then we will test your theories, and if we deem them worthy, we will disseminate these colors and techniques throughout our collective so everyone can continue to paint the same colors in the same way." It's like a room full of Van Gogh's, and never a Kandinsky.
I feel torn at times with how I feel about this approach.
I do *understand* the desire to keep terminology clear. Carolena's seen more than her fair share of what she has created being completely bastardized, yet people claim to be doing what she does. And frankly, if it walks and talks like a duck, it's a duck, and if it walks and talks like a gorilla in a duck costume, it's a gorilla in a duck costume. Sadly, not everyone can tell the difference, and perhaps Carolena is trying to turn back time and change that. I admire her courage to stand up for her art, and her honesty about her motivations.
But it's the interest in buying into that which confounds me as an artist myself. I think that creation and building something from within YOU is part of being an artist. Being told what I can paint, how, and where is fine when I am first starting out--the path of most every artist is emulating those greater than themselves. But eventually, you start working to paint from the inside out, rather than the outside in; and all those lessons you learned along the way are now a part of you, and those different colors and brushstrokes find a home within you and are re-blended with other influences and are expressed through the lens of You-ness.
I completely understand that once one has started to express themselves in a unique way, it should take on another name. It IS something else, it is not that original creation any more. In this case, it has become another expression, style or format, and not ATS any more. But the idea that one could and should only ever want to use those moves, in that format, forever and ever, and deny your personal creative instincts in order to follow someone else's prescribed methods for all time...I personally can't get behind that. I have too many creative ideas of my own!
Now that I have really dug into ATS, and am enjoying its energy and form, it will absolutely influence me greatly going forward. I am already much more thoughtful about what I add to my dance and why (and some things I added before were ditched once my eyes were opened to this different way of looking at movement and format), and I do literally think "What would Carolena say about this kind of movement? Does it meet the basic requirements for ATS aesthetics? Does it flow and jive with those goals?" BUT then my very next question is, "Does it jive with my energy and my troupe and our hybrid version of ATS that we work with. Does it still honor those aesthetics, while being a unique message from within us? Does it flow with who we believe we are and where we think we want to go?"
Now, admittedly, these are questions we can only realistically ask as of about the last 3 years or so. And I bet it is not as easily or clearly answered as it will be in, say, 10 years from now. Because with each passing year we grow deeper and deeper into our Selves. Our troupe gels more and more each year, creating its own energy and aesthetic with our collaborative energies feeding into it. Carolena is at a point in her career where she really Knows who her troupe Is, who she is, and what she wants to express with her dance. I want that to be an inspiration in my dance, but not the sole driving force. As an artist, I can't sit back on someone else's creation and claim it is truly coming from within me. Art doesn't work like that.
Only that which comes from Me can really BE ME. And I want to be Me. And I want my Troupe to be My Troupe. I will honor those who have come before and put me on this path, but I will forever strive to be my own unique interpretation of those lessons and philosophies. I truly have a hard time understanding Art in any other context...
That was my deep thought of the day. Off to the aquarium with Celise, Tyler, Claire, Amy, and Simon!
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