Life’s Nothing But Performance (Art)
Your experience is enough... but if it isn’t, then try again!
So last week I made the “decision” to apply to grad school —UCLA’s World Art’s Culture and Dance Program, the Masters in Fine Arts in Choreographic Inquiry. A dance program, with an emphasis in how dance connects and intersects with culture. Excited, a little scared, I looked at the application. One statement of purpose, three letters of recommendation (suggested from faculty), an experiential background questionnaire, not to mention videos of two choreographic pieces—one of which was not to include myself. The app was due yesterday.
Needless to say, I did not make the deadline.
But at least I have a dream and some time to see if continuing my education in dance and world’s arts and cultures is aligned with my higher purpose.
Writing a dance personal statement
Two fully choreographed performance pieces is a lot. I haven’t taken a traditional dance class or performed since my senior year of college in 2017. How is my experience worthy? What kind of performance can I create? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the two pieces I will curate, but none seem good enough: a classic urban choreography hip hop piece on stage? A house piece in the wilderness? A waacking set with all queer dancers at the club? Those all seeme out of my grasp. There are much better housers, waackers, urban choreographers than me. Anything I make would pale in comparison to other applicants… many of whom would probably have years of professional experience, I thought.
Working through my confusion, I dove into my old writings looking for inspiration. I came across the personal statement for the UC I wrote in 2017. Here was the second prompt:
Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud, and how does it relate to the person you are?
My personal statement was about my internship at Loma Linda University summer of my Junior year in 2012. Towards the end I made a comparison between the unlikely: the choreography of the lab experiments between team members in the lab and the final poster presentation to the performance on a stage. Back then I had the dream of becoming a dancing doctor, majoring in bioengineering. At the time, I was so determined to have all three futures fit into one. I could not see life any other way.
Everything is performance
17 year old me already knew that performance could be found anywhere: how students act in a class, the goody two-shoes and the kid acting out, how people act out and about. All are forms of performance. Even non-performance is performance. My younger self knew it. He knew that lab procedure is a choreographed dance—the poster presentation his ultimate stage.
In that moment I realized that my life is performance. My perception that I lacked performance experience was just that, a perception. When in reality, I’ve been performing all my life. My life has been a continual, messy, beautiful freestyle helping create my unique experience. Teaching in the classroom, cooking in a kitchen, entertaining friends are all examples of my unique, un-choreographed. I realized that my life is a dance where my soul experiences itself. It’s messy, beautiful, sometimes freestyle & sometimes choreographed… just like art.
Leaning into all parts of my experience
The key to choreographing my two pieces for my grad apps would mean leaning into everything that makes me unequivocally me! I’ve been dancing between my identities as a bipolar, kabayani, filipino-american, gay middle class, pan-romantic, brother, son, drag-queen, activist, community organizer, and artist for 24 years now. So I’ll take this experience and create the two best pieces of choreography for my 2020 application—a picture of my beautiful life thus far.
The least I can do is try. If I don’t get it, then oh will. The dance will go on and on.
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Read my my high school personal statement in my previous post: Simple Spanish. Don’t forget to subscribe at The Activist Cookbook for more content on radical honesty, compassion, and interesting stories. Also join The Activist Cookbook’s official Discord Server— The Kabayanihan—and let’s chat there!