CRAFT
EDITION #6

Table of Contents

• I DREAMT MY HEART WAS STOLEN

• SIGNPOST 🪧

• TRAINING

• MY CURIOSITY

ART
I DREAMT MY HEART WAS STOLEN

I feel as if I’ve just woken from a dream. I dreamed I had been moving in a way I hadn’t for some time. A movement I hadn’t fully lost, but a movement that took time to recover. Remembered and graceful movement. I step out of my bed and onto the ground, flat, full of achy and pressed feet. I step back onto a floor riddled with crumbs from the tables above. In my dream, I was dancing as if flying, floating, turning into a new self with each pirouette. I sang and released a voice that had been kept hidden from myself, expressing love, yearning, and romance. But this dream was not a dream, it was reality, hidden in some haze of a week-long process.

Two nights ago (May 18, 2024) we closed our performance of An American in Paris. It was meant to be a minimally blocked reading on stage with script and score in hand, but that didn’t really happen. Though unexpected, and at times daunting, it was welcome, I put the script down and memorized what I could because all I wanted was to dance freely as Jerry Mulligan (The Gene Kelly track in the film). The work necessary to do that alchemized A new discipline for the week, redeveloping ballet technique with the help of Erin Ekin who played Lise, my dance partner. She and I worked partner lifts, floated around in the dance studio together, and aimed for doubles, me in my beaten-up character shoes, and her in her pointe shoes. Eventually, landing on a very clean and breathy single, at least on her end.

Erin Ekin was the best partner I could ever ask for. I was lucky to be paired with her, she came in with powerful foundational ability in ballet, and put the work into her acting and dialect only someone with innate discipline could, and did both with incredible ease. I was inspired. As her partner, I could see the work she put into her technique by the copious amount of time spent with her in the dance studio. By feel, by space, by breath, I could see how hard she must have worked throughout her life to get to where she is now. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to where she was in a week, I would be naive to say so, but I knew that at the very least, I could try. So I did.

Along with Erin Ekin, I worked with Lila, Zak, Sarah, and Marden Ramos, literally a family of phenomenal dancers. I also worked with Erin Wolford on ensemble numbers. Lila helped me copy Robert Fairchild better, ran me through barre work (Ballet Barre) Zak was there… just kidding, he gave me shit, but was also my biggest hype man (He’s possibly reading this, so I’ll be nice, just this once). Sarah and Erin Wolford were the choreographers so they checked in on Erin Ekin and me from time to time after they gave us the material to learn.

I had no responsibility but the responsibility to the show, the character, my partner, my cast, the crew, and the orchestra, which actually sounds like a lot of responsibility, but it’s different. It was the focus and discipline in understanding my part of the whole process. A focus I tuned into, and began to sharpen my ability. Because this show was only a week I honed in and focused as hard as I could on becoming the best that I could be, and I feel like I did the best that I could. It was easy as the process was something I fell in love with. An American in Paris may have rediscovered the heart I had hidden from myself, or maybe, rather, it stole my heart, and I only remembered what I had having lost it.

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