Curing the Concussion...Or is the Concussion the Cure?

Head injuries are a funny thing.

In a way, they halt every aspect of your life (no reading, no TV, no concentrating on a computer screen, no physical activity), allowing you nothing but time to think. On the other hand, even heavy thought is discouraged as you mend! Unfortunately, this brain never stops. And given the extra time, I found myself overflowing with new insights on choreography, artistry, business, and life.

Day 1 - The Injury
After a beautiful morning of graceful, yet exhilarating lifts during rehearsal (not Luminarium), I found myself falling backwards to the ground, with a resounding thud as my head (and only my head) collided with the floor. An unfortunate, and purely accidental, slip.

Fast-forward to a few hours later at work, feeling and looking violently ill, and joking about having a concussion. Still, I was so determined to see Trisha Brown at the ICA with Kim that I figured I'd tough it out and take the T. It was worth the hassle. Such a wonderful performance space, complete with a view of Boston Harbor behind the stage. (Though I must admit that both Kim and I had the same reaction to the performance: Beautiful movement, furstrating choreography. For a complete and excellently-articulated account of the performance, check out Kim's blog post HERE.) Little did I know this was the last hoorah for my now fully-concussed brain.


Day 4 - The Diagnosis
So, yes, it shamefully took me four days to realize that a concussion doesn't simply hit you hard then get better with time. Monday night brought a painfully slow visit at the ER, some scans, and some good news: Concussion, yes; Severe damage, no. And thus began my recommended treatment of turning off my brain and staring at the wall.

Day 6 - The Reclaiming...
...of my life! Finally! It is amazing how little time I devote to taking care of myself in certain aspects. By Day 6, I was handed a decent amount of energy and the inspiration to clean everything. Organized my files, cleaned the apartment, and when all was done and boredom began to sink back in...out came the Christmas decorations.

Those who explored Paris with me might recognize this
candy-tin-turned-candle-holder from one of the city's
most delightful little chocolate shops!

Snowflake time with the roommate!
Plus a gorgeous pink Gerber daisy from Russo's.

Katie's fun little tree from TJMaxx. Meanwhile, I'd just
brought home a real tree for the living room. Perfect.

"I'm making a winter wonderland in the kitchen," I texted to my poor roommate, as I pulled out the hammer and fairy lights, "How good are you at making paper snowflakes?" Now, I'm no Kaitlin McCarthy, Queen of Intricate Snowflakes (ranging from Christmas tree flakes to Manora flakes), but seeing as our skylight began like this...

And now looks like this...

I think it's coming together rather nicely.

Day 12 - The Present

It's been a week and a half since the fall, and in many ways I am grateful for the sudden, forced speedbump in my hectic routine. It served as a chance for me to separate myself from all electronics, paperwork and (dare I say it) even dance. It gave me a moment to breathe, to reflect, to reorganize, and--most importantly--to reconnect with many friends over the phone and in person. However, I'm not what I normally am. I'm not the tireless, multi-tasking machine that I was two weeks ago. Even Kim has commented on how strange it is to witness me in such a spacey/sleepy state of being. In fact, in many ways I'm feeling like the cupcakes I made tonight:

Friday shook me up, left me feeling disjointed and wobbly...

And by now, while whole again, I still don't feel completely like myself. I seem to be missing the flair that is Merli...

mmmm... Tasty Lemon cupcakes.
But what's missing?

Ah ha!

That's what I'm looking for. Well, it seems my cupcakes are more energetic than I am at the moment, but give me another week or two, and hopefully I'll be crazy, colorful, and concussion-free, too.

It all comes back to family.

It's official. Luminarium's 2011 Season has come to a close. And with the completion of its first year end show (Y.E.S.) came a bit of a post-show depression for me today. I couldn't help it! All those endorphins and adrenaline leaving my body... It's tough to pull it together. But thanks to a persistent boyfriend and some nudging from Kim, I seem to be back on track.

Looking back over the year, one could professionally summarize our 2011 prime moments as:

• Movement at the Mills, Boston Center for the Arts
• Co-Founders Speak at “Crafting a Life in the Arts,” Mount Holyoke College
• Kickstarter Countdown and World Premiere, The Dance Complex
• MHC Commencement Concert, Mount Holyoke College
• LEAP: Leading & Engaging Artistic Pursuits, Cambridge YMCA Theatre
• Dance for World Community Festival, Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre
• IN SYNC/Sambandh ~ Japan Fundraiser, Williston Theater
• Dancers Among Us, Jordan Matter Photography
• Sponsor Benefit Gala, AKA Bistro of Lincoln
• Seacoast Fringe Festival, Portsmouth NH
• Memento Mori, Mobius Alternative Arts Center
• Year End Show, Green Street Studios

 And yet, the moments that accompanied these accomplishments are the ones I hope to never forget:

• Screaming on the phone with Kim after receiving our first performance invitation...at the BCA, no less!
• Staying with Kim in Mount Holyoke's fanciest hotel, while converting their washcloths into makeshift toothbrushes, having BOTH forgotten to bring one.
• The 40+ takes it took to make our Kickstarter film, due sneaky interventions from a certain little dog...
• Working with children and a talented costume designer to create a fantastic 15-foot-long piece of artwork that doubled as a skirt!
• 1) Forging a makeshift tent at the DWC Festival out of found materials, safety pins, an umbrella and plastic wrap. 2) Bracing ourselves against the legs of said tent every ten minutes when the wind picked up and turned it into a sail. 3) Seeing the look on Mark's face, having left him in charge of the crazy hovercraft tent for just fifteen minutes, and now finding everything soaked and Mark looking pummeled/dazed/confused.
• Presenting Luminarium's repertoire along side Nataraj Dancers...the other company that has meant so much to me.
• Pick axes, and a fun movie night.
• Feeling a debilitating pain in my side at the Gala, being told I was just nervous to give a speech to all of our sponsors, and later being diagnosed with a kidney stone....who knew!
  
• Having my face bashed in by one of our more dynamic dancers, who then handed me a cold apple to roll across my swollen nose.
• Staying up til 5am in Portsmouth, jabbing bobby pins and a wedding ring into an apple wearing a tiny top hat and declaring him Mayor Macintosh of the Autumn Fair.
• Dancing in truly the TINIEST gallery space imaginable, and gracing just a single painting with our presence.
  
• Creating a brand new piece in 4 rehearsals over two and a half weeks...technically 5.5 hours, though several were only there for half of it...getting puchy with Kim by the end of the last rehearsal, and deciding to have our dancers create their own live soundscore with funny noises to accompany their movements...nearly hacking up a lung every time I saw the piece from this moment on. SUCH a fantastic little new work, with six of our most humorously-talented dancers.
• Receiving flowers from the cast. Didn't expect it. Meant so much.

So why the title of this post? Well, after reflecting on a year of hard work, beautiful presentation, and meaningful bonding, it's clear to me that the company Kim and I started in 2010 is now more than an assembly of talented dancers. It's a family, and a strong one at that.

But the main reason I feel that it all comes back to family, is that it does literally come back to me each time I perform or face another challenge, just how encouraging and instrumental to my work my family has been. As I put away my costumes last night, it struck me as symbolic that I began Luminarium's year with fabric from my mom, and ended it with fabric from my dad. In March, my breathing installation in Movement at the Mills at the BCA was centered around my mom's beautiful and artistic collection of fabric quarters (to someday be used in a quilt). It started the year off to a wonderfully colorful start. Eight months later, having gone through nearly a dozen white shirts in you have hands, too? (due to be written on with sharpies during each performance), I found myself in need of one last shirt. By perfect chance, my dad had just the shirt I needed, heading to the scrap bin. So for my very last performance in the very last show of our season, I wore another piece of fabric from my family.

The breathing installation at Movement at the Mills in March.

you have hands, too? at Green Street Studios in November.
Photo by Steph Hodge Photography.

And as a final "It all comes back to family" remark: A special note of thanks must go out to my brother, for being such a positive influence on my work as a comedian/artist. J-Dag, you are my toughest critic. You tell me when something doesn't strike you, and you're honest when you would've taken it in a different direction. As the funniest person I know, it was so wonderful to receive such high praise from you after this last performance.

So much love to Kim, my company, my family, and the one man in the world who keeps me sane. It all comes back to you.

As Midnight Meets the Morning Glory

You don't have to be an artist to feel that you are frequently faced with conflicts. Obstacles present unforeseen opportunities for a shift in one's current path, while forcing us to re-evaluate just how much our current paths mean to us, as we try to jump these hurdles to continue down the road. There are always moments of questioning, be it through life choices, artistic choices, or matters within ourselves, but with this questioning inevitably comes new answers, or at the very least...new thought.

It's night time in Concord. The world is asleep; I am heading to dinner with family, then a dance with friends. The past two weeks have been physically and mentally strenuous, balancing work and Luminarium, while trading in sleep for more time to work on grant proposals with Kim. And yet, over the last ten days, some of the most memorable moments took place in that same dark black: Bonding with company members late at night on the streets of Portsmouth, driving home at midnight after an incredible play (windows down and music up), finishing Luminarium's latest grant proposals by the blue light of a computer screen, dancing with friends in Peterborough in a hall brimming with laughter and music, and seeing this...tucked away, nearly out of sight against the garage door of my family's home:

A morning glory. A beautiful, brilliant blue morning glory bursting forth through the panes of the heavy garage door. Unbelievable! How this graceful little plant made it is both a mystery and the perfect example of overcoming an obstacle. Having taken root on the far side of the building, the plant apparently crept its way inside the roof, taking care to loop its way intricately across the back inner wall of the garage before lacing itself through the wheels of some old bikes mounted there, and ultimately poked its vines back towards the sun through the tiniest of cracks in the center window pane (having fulfilled its curiosity of the dark-lit room through which it wandered).

What wonderful little monster of a plant, popping out where least expected, taking the long, windy road, rather than the short one around the corner. It was such a comically beautiful sight, seeing this single, proud flower blooming towards a black sky with its companions peering through the glass from inside... It has defeated everything: the garage, the window, and even its name. There's no "morning" in this glory. Just a plant with a mission and a meeting with Midnight.

This week, as yet another fork in the road beckons me, as an obstacle makes me challenge my current direction and the possibility of new ones ahead, I will do my best to attack it like my little monster plant: I will accept the challenge, take on the adventure, and break away towards something new...that is, all while keeping my roots firmly in place.

365 days, and so many thoughts with each...

Overwhelmed.

Beautifully, emotionally, physically, mentally... Excitingly overwhelmed.

That is how I have felt for the last five days, and as I sit here in what some would call the "wee hours of the morning," it's just another late night full of progress and frustrations as Kim and I pace ourselves to finish six grants over the next two days, to promote our show in four weeks, and to prepare for Memento Mori in just 10 days. There is always something Luminarium in nature keeping my brain churning long into the night. But tonight, it is time to reflect on the last five days, as I force myself back into reality.

Thursday, Oct. 6
Dress Rehearsal for the Seacoast Fringe Festival. Finally, a chance to put everything together (lights, costumes, props, choreography) and begin to unify as a group. The evening was wild with fast-paced corrections, adjustments, and timings. Somewhere in the middle I found myself completely caught off guard as an early birthday cake emerged and my sneaky dancers presented me with one of the most creatively constructed cards I've ever received in my 24 birthdays. What a surprise! After a long week of hard work, it was difficult not to be sentimental at such a kind gesture. At the time I made a mental note of how wonderful it is that we are in many ways a family. Little did I know just how true this would be over the next few days.

Fast forward to an hour after rehearsal when Kim and I received the news that her grandfather has passed. Exhausted and distracted by the daunting task of taking our company on tour in a little over 24 hours, we both sort of stood there in a bit of a daze. In the calmness of that moment, I couldn't believe the beauty of his timing. As a performer in Kim's new work Agonia, based on her emotional ties to her grandfather and his gradual departure to cancer, I had become very attached to the piece. Just a few hours earlier, I had poured myself into the role of a femme fatale, pulling the final ribbon from Mark's chest in (what I have interpreted as) an oddly tender, yet menacing manner. The piece felt so smooth, so solid, so beautifully alive with Kim's lighting breathing and exhaling across the dancers throughout the piece, it seemed only appropriate to receive the news that it was, indeed, complete.

It's not my piece, and I will in no way claim that experience to be solely my own, but there was a beauty about it that not only lingered with me for the rest of the weekend, but that added a new level of sincerity to the performance of the piece from all of us involved.

Friday, October 7
My birthday. Over-worked, and over-tired, it was an emotional day preparing for the big trip, and reflecting back on birthday #23, half of which was spent teching for Luminarium's debut performance FRACTURE.

Me! On my birthday in 2010,
excitedly preparing for our very first show.
Photo by Christina Pong.

How funny to think that the eve of my company's debut in 2010 would sync up perfectly with the eve of Luminarium's New Hampshire debut. I cannot begin to process just how much we have all accomplished in literally 365 days. It is truly remarkable, and I can only hope that birthday #25 will be celebrated on some other continent on the eve of our international debut.

Saturday, October 8 & Sunday, October 9
The fun begins. I am so pleased with how this weekend went. It not only gave us the chance to wander the fun and quirky streets of Portsmouth, but it forced us to really get to know one another. Good news; we all still like each other, too! No small feat for a group of 10 dancers, 2 directors and a handful of wonderfully supportive family and significant others joining us. Of course there were the typical moments of panic...The hour-long wait for a "20-minute" pizza delivery before our show...The sinking feeling of realizing the space is arranged in a completely different manner than planned on...The quick fixes involving the creative rearranging of bookshelves to create a makeshift wing...The hostile nature of a true curmudgeonous old man keeping guard over his carpets... But these things are only to be expected.

Meghan and Adam dancing in the streets of Portsmouth.
Photo by Amy Mastrangelo.

We hit the streets, connected with other performers, gained the interest of nearly a dozen Boston natives up north for the Columbus Day weekend, and enjoyed a fun night out on the town. We artists are funny people; we can be shockingly deep and focused on stage, and lively and downright silly off of it. Thank goodness for that balance!

One of the most enjoyable moments of the trip for several of us was when we stumbled across a water fountain with eight pillars circling it. We spent a few hours on those pillars throughout the weekend, moving in response to passersby shouting numbers 1 through 7. It was so wonderful to react to the children shouting, and so amusing to watch them begin quietly and shyly, then boldly, then downright sassily with directions such as "The square route of 4!" (to which I, being #2, responded with a sassy gesture and stare at the now bashfully giggling little boy on his father's shoulders). Take a peek here!

Monday, October 10
Having returned home, and worked a more than full day at work, the arts struck me one last time this weekend as I viewed New Rep' opening night of Collected Stories. An exceptional play, masterfully directed and intricately set, with two actresses who gradually begin to feel like old friends from afar. Having just spent the past four days colliding with emotions of pride, satisfaction, frustration, sadness, calming synchronicity, excitement, and the ever-present awareness of Where was I one year ago? and Where will I be one year from now?, this play struck me in a way it hadn't when reading it in my room late at night during my first week on the job. Subtleties of the characters' relationships spoke to me in ways I was little expecting, and comforted me in ways I needed most. The lighting, the set, the stage all entwined to create an absolutely believable world. Funny, that I found myself entering yet another world of non-reality, after Thursday and Friday's stress and numbness escaped to a world of joy, excitement, and artistry over the weekend.

It's hard to come back. Hard to focus on the grant proposals due in two days time. Hard to focus on the behind-the-scenes flurry that surrounds every great production. And yet, I know that on a crisp fall day in 2012, gathering birthday cards from relatives off my porch, I'll be looking back at this moment and just shaking my head with a smile....as I fly off in my hover car, and head to the newly constructed Luminarium Dance Center that our million dollar grant provided us.

you have hands, too?
Photo by Amy Mastrangelo.

And the good news just keeps coming in...

Some wonderful news for followers not only of Luminarium Dance Company's work, but of my own work as an artist. Just five days ago, Kim informed me of a wonderful opportunity to present our work in Mobius' upcoming performance and art event entitled Memento Mori. For those unaware, Mobius is a well-known name in the Boston/Cambridge community. They are a collective of visual artists, musicians, poets, performers...all that is artistic, you name it! Mobius is a well-established group who used to have a home in the South End, but recently moved to 55 Norfolk Street in Cambridge (Not far from the Dance Complex).

Memento mori, Latin for “Remember your Mortality” has provided inspiration for artists for centuries.  Even in the twenty-first century, ways of coping with the shadow of death continues to haunt aesthetic imaginations.

We are currently seeking submissions and proposals for a performance and art event that explore the theme of mortality, mourning, remembrance, and memory.   This event will take place at the Mobius Alternative Arts Space in Cambridge, MA from October 20 to 24. 

With only 4 days until the submission deadline, Kim and I scrambled! Fortunately, I already had two works ready to submit: Casting Shadows, Tearing Holes, which premiered in Luminarium's debut concert in October 2010 and was later performed in Nataraj Dancers' IN SYNC: Sambandh (a performance remembering the devastation in Japan) in June 2011; and my film What seems so is transition, created back in 2009 as I headed out of Mount Holyoke College.

Kim had the good chance of also having relevant work to present. She has most recently been putting her choreographic energy towards a wonderful new piece dealing with one's mortality. As one of the serpentine, sultry, yet deadly, women in the piece, it has been a moving experience to become so involved in such an emotionally-driven new work.

Now, just one day after submitting our work, I'm happy to announce that we are three for three! All three works have been selected to be shown just three weeks from now. A wonderful success for Luminarium, and a personal goal reached for myself, as What seems so is transition has always been a favorite of mine, but has not yet had its opportunity to be shown professionally.

Below are the photos, and film stills I submitted with my application. It is an eye-opening experience to be asked to submit five photos of one's past work. It makes an artist stop and think, "Where do I begin?" and "What do I include?"

More details on the performance times and dates to come. Until then, it is time to focus on performing at the Seacoast Fringe Festival this weekend...and somewhere in between, remembering to turn 24! :)