Flow

If you would have asked me 3 years ago if I danced I would have said something like, "I can have a seizure in any position you like." (Yes, I can have a seizure while standing.) I did not see myself being or becoming a "dancer" without extensive training, which I wasn't very interested in. What I was interested in however, was playing the piano. (This tangent will circle back around, I promise.) I loved to compose and interpret works. My creative process is an extremely private, personal, and even spiritual or sacred act. When you combine the desire for privacy with a profound fear of an audience rejecting your work, however, what you get is a string of train-wrecked piano recitals. Performances that could have been skillfully, and passionately played to an empty room moments earlier were only an embarrassment once my performances were underway.

Things continued in this way until I discovered two concepts that not only changed my playing, but also changed every creative endeavor that I would later embark upon: Self-editing and Flow.

Self-editing:
Self-editing is the process in which our mind, in search for the absolute best idea, whispers to us, "No, don't do that, that's not the best." While this is a crucial skill to have when trying to navigate a math problem or an awkward social situation, it is destructive to the creative process. There are two ways to shut off self-editing. One is the use of hallucinogenic and narcotic drugs (which is why we see seemingly divine improvisations by drug-using musicians). The second method is try and maintain a state of constant analysis, brainstorming, and synthesis. When you brainstorm, you should write absolutely everything down. If you eliminate it from your decision making before it reaches the paper, you're self-editing. If you just let the ideas flow, then later you will be able to possibly tweak a bad idea to make it an exceptional idea that no one had ever thought of because they, like you, had always eliminated it as an option before it even really existed. Don't self-edit too soon. Doing this while performing, and still respecting the piece you are trying to perform takes some practice.

Flow:
You can call it "being passionate," being "In the Zone," or "losing your inhibitions," but it's more than all of these things. According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, "When we are in creative flow, we are fully absorbed in whatever we are doing and find it easy to achieve peak performance." Not self-editing is crucial to achieving "flow". One aspect of flow is that the artist "becomes one" with the art form. The pen or paintbrush or musical instrument seems to be simply an extension of the artists body and consciousness. What was most important for me is that when achieved, the audience seems to melt away and a person is left alone their work. This happens because a person's mind is working so hard on concentrating, that it rejects any inputs that are not crucial to furthering the task at hand.

I love to dance. If I work hard enough at not self-editing and just enjoy myself, then using my body in order to express an emotion is a very pleasurable activity. So what does this have to do with World of Dance? What makes some dancers better than others? What makes anyone better at one skill than another person? Some of the dancers might have had more"talent," some might have practiced more, or eaten a good breakfast that morning, but I would like to suggest that as you watched this performance, whether you knew it or not, what you were really watching was performers at different levels of "flow." If you were to put yourself in their shoes (assuming that you know the correct dance steps) would you give enough of yourself to try and achieve some higher state performing, or dare I say--living? I believe that everyone has it in them to be an expressive--if not talented--dancer, if they are willing to train their minds to allow them to be so. Throughout your university experience, I would encourage you to work on these crucial skills. As you fill your mind with the information it needs access to in order create "Great Works," please don't be a person who as Sir Ken Robinson stated -"Look[s] upon their body [only] as a form of transport for their heads." Dance!