Music Write-Ups
How do you know Chris Earley?
How many MP3s do you have on your hard drive?
From my station above a valley of redwoods, watching the sky transform from electric blue to brilliant yellow, I turned on my side and addressed the warm, giving cushions around me: “I always loved the word ‘Bliss’… it seems to conjure up a pleasure so sublime that it can only exist in the poet’s imagination”. After a deep and languorous inward sigh, a belly returned me to my original vantage, where I could again follow the gentle, flowing transformations reflected in the billowy clouds above. A girl’s hand reached out to my head and tousled my hair affectionately. My words, receding already into the transforming landscape, felt at once both profound and mundane, and I smiled knowing that my simple Being was always already forgiven.
My lover, always the kitten, is bundled with blankets in the corner, smiling at me. I ponder human romantic love, and how it seems both sustained and diminished under this eternal light. The various forms of heart suffering wash through me. Knowing that I still have much to learn about fear and loss, I motion for her to embrace me. I flush as I simultaneously realize our impermanence and our immortality.
She draws herself into me. “I love you” her eyes silently say. “And we can do the whole thing together.”
Our lids fall closed, and merging together, we surrender to this one timeless moment.
~
This song is sensual and beautiful, a classic comedown track that I have heard several times in early morning chill rooms and different festivals and parties. It is from Jairamji, an artist on Dakini records, a Japanese label associated with Psytrance culture. I love this song because it serves to remind me of the moment above, experienced at a retreat center this February in Boonville, CA. It is the power of music to inspire us to dream, and to recall in us those dreams, that drew me to being a DJ long ago and sustains my interest in music. Let me know if you like this style of music (ambient/ downtempo/ chill-out) and I would be happy to contribute more of the same!
-Anonymous
I once had a mentor. I haven’t found another to replace her. I actually don’t think it’s possible.
I’m going to tell you a story about my mentor, Miss Pat.
I decided to switch dance studios at the age of 16, after training at a sub-par studio for 10 years. I was ready to take the next step and commit myself to the profession and art of dance. The best place I could go was American Dance. It’s where dancers went to become “professional.” I got out of my car, scared shitless due to the guilt of no longer being loyal to my previous “dance family.” Each step to the front entrance felt like centuries. “Should I keep walking…maybe I’m not good enough…is this girl looking at me funny?…they’ll never accept me…they’ll know I’m not good enough.” After I was able to quiet down my self-loathing self-talk, I was finally able to gather enough strength to open the front door. What I didn’t know then that I know now is that I had just opened the door to the rest of my artistic life. My life as an artist. My life as an artist with muse. As I looked up, I saw the largest set of pearly whites I had ever seen. Have you ever had someone smile at you and you were forced to exhale? It felt like I was finally home. That is what I felt when I saw Miss Pat. She immediately made eye contact with me as I approached the front desk. She wouldn’t let me look away. I didn’t want to look away. As I walked up to pay for my first class, she knew what was going through my mind. I could feel her wisdom and energy. It completely freaked me out. She directed me to the correct room where my class was being held. “It’s your lucky day. I’m teaching your class since the normal teacher is sick this evening.” “Fuck,” I thought. I then knew that I was about to go through “the test.” Low and behold, she fucking destroyed my ass in class. Still, to this date, that was the hardest class I’ve ever taken. And, I’m convinced she made it that way on purpose…for me. She approached my at the end of the hour as I was gathering my dance bag and picking up my self-esteem that had splattered all over the walls. She said, “You have ‘it’…I can tell. You either have ‘it’ or you don’t. And YOU have ‘it’. If you commit yourself to everything I say/do then I promise you can have everything you want out of this art. You’ve been given a gift. Let’s make sure, together, that it is taken care of.” I, of course, being 16 was floored and confused. I didn’t quite get was she was telling me, but I knew it was a big enough that I needed to listen. I went home that night and told my parents what had happened. Well, I tried to tell them what happened. Only Pat and I knew the significance of that moment. And that’s the way I’d prefer it to remain.
I was under Pat’s wing for the next 3-years.
Then, it happened. The cancer. It happened. No one knew what to do. How does this happen? Is this really happening? Life went on with her sick. Her bones were sick. Very sick. She tried to continue on as usual, but things weren’t as usual. Why was she training me on how to teach some her favorite classes? Why was she giving me full authority over her dance companies? What was she doing? Did she actually think she was going to die? “That’s silly,” I thought. But, she wasn’t all that silly. I was.
During her last couple of months in her human body, she carried the 1996 Olympic torch for a mile across the USA, she performed a sign language piece in a chair in a 1200-seated theatre because she simply couldn’t stand the thought of “not performing because she was in pain,” & received a llifetime achievement award at the Bob Fosse Awards. I would bring her garlic mashed potatoes from her favorite restaurant in town beside her bed. It’s the only food that she enjoyed AND could swallow that didn’t feel like “old people’s food,” as she called it. She continued to give me advice, even on her death bed. “Make sure those boys you date treat you right.” She’d be happy to know that I took every single piece of advice she ever gave me.
Then she died. My believer had vanished. I was left to believe on my own. I’ve found that’s hard. Maybe that’s what she wanted for me. She just might have believed in me that much. I all of the sudden found myself managing and directing 3 professional dance companies at the age of 20…same age that she opened her first dance studio.
Here is what my mentor taught me…
She taught me how to influence positive change in our world with art — and our duty was through the expression of movement, better known as dance.
She taught me that a smile cures EVERYTHING.
She taught me that there is a difference between candor and aggression.
She taught me that nothing is “urgent” unless someone is bleeding or dieing.
She taught me that art is a calling, not a class or a college major.
She taught me that direction is healthy.
She taught me that my opinions are the only things that I completely own and to never give them away unless the receiver is worthy.
She taught me that we have 2 sides to our personalities — the nuturer & the hard-core — notice both and accept that both are there. Let them co-exist or you will go crazy.
She taught me the fucked up cliche that pisses me off every time I say it “everything happens for a reason”
The last dance I choreographed, before I moved to NYC to dance professionally, was done to this song. I did it because I got angry every time I heard it. For that reason, I wanted to honor her. Out of hundreds of pieces I danced in or choreographed, this song still stands out to me as being the most emotional art piece I ever commited myself to.
Question for you: What song would you pick to honor your mentor?
-Z.P.