Stuck? Invent Something

While I was dancing in Paris, I worked with Olivier Bioret, a French choreographer who uses dance notation to generate and experiment with movement. His classes and rehearsals were both intellectually and physically stimulating, something I seek in dance. At one point, I contorted myself into a position, and in a moment of frustration, gasped, "I'm stuck." Without missing a beat, Olivier turned to me and said:

The moment you are stuck is the moment you are about to invent something.

His quote played over and over again in my mind for the rest of my travels abroad, and since I have returned, I have thought about his words constantly. I often regard the feeling of being stuck with disdain. As an artist, a dancer, and a writer, I constantly push myself to improve and work harder. I fear writer's block and choreographic blank spaces.

Yet, in the past year, I have felt stuck a lot. I could not bring myself to write a single poem for the entire month of January, and I am dealing with another bout of writer's block right now. Choreographically, I spent all of my sophomore year in the studio, but failed to create anything I liked or was remotely proud of. Even this blog felt stale and monotonous for a while, which was something I never expected.

Being surrounded by art in Paris inspired me to pick up my feet and go back to the studio. I wrote so many poems, good and bad, but I was writing. When I walked into the dance library and saw this quote by Charles Baudelaire:

La danse, c'est la poésie avec des bras et des jambs.

The quote translates to "Dance is poetry with the arms and legs." Often, I feel stuck when I am trying to tie together my interests, and it just does not work. Yet, here in Paris, I found a quote that captured exactly how I feel about my study of the language of dance, which is, for me, inherently connected to my study of English.

Then, I went to the Shakespeare & Company bookstore, and my books came in a bag featuring a famous Voltaire quote:

Let us read and let us dance; these two amusement will never do any harm to the world.

Again, I was reminded of the two activities I love most, and inspired to continue to connect these creative processes in any ways I can. Out of my periods of "stuck," I have begun to create and invent movement and meaning in my work.

This is probably my greatest lesson from my time abroad, a time when I felt stuck, homesick, and tired more often than I felt creative and exhilarated. And yet, the art I invented while there is beginning to make my process and style much clearer.

Tomorrow, I begin my junior year of college. This year, when I am stuck, I know that I am just that much closer to inventing something.