art in plague times

ask kitty

Vol 6

Timea P., Los Angeles

Where do you think our industry goes? What are the biggest changes that we will face? Performing arts in general.

Matthew L., Birmingham, UK

Do you think artists must suffer?

Dear Timea and Matthew,

Thank you! I share your questions and concerns.

I’m scared yet optimistic. I’m reading about other plague times (Shakespeare lived through a few) and learning that as frightening as these times may be they will no doubt seed some incredible creativity. Things will be different - they have already changed so significantly - but no one is better at ‘pivoting’ than artists. It may be a few before I will cram myself into the elevator with 15 opera singers to get out of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion a few minutes early. It may be a few before I can lose myself in a room full of sweaty humans sharing time and space. It may be a few - but we will get there.

I think folks will need us to grapple with the story of this plague and the emotional toll of living through it and grieving those who did not. They will need us to shape it into something that provides empathy, perspective and communal healing. So, to answer your question Matthew, yes. We must suffer along with the rest - we can’t fly high, numb ourselves or avoid the truth. We must take it in, manipulate it and offer it up in a way that we can all heal from it. 

We have each other, for that I am supremely grateful. We have the fortitude to steadily work  through the most challenging situations (anyone who has taken a dance class knows this is true!) What we fear now will fuel us later.

Stay Well,

Kitty

darkness and magic

ask kitty

Vol 4

Blake M., Medellín, Colombia

Do you ever feel lost? Making a living from creating is often inexorably daunting... What are some of the things you do to get out of the feeling of being stagnate/uninspired?

Jasmine A., San Pedro, CA

how do you make magic in times of darkness?

Dear Blake and Jasmine,

Thank you for the beautiful questions. For me they are bound together. Our shared experience these past 9 months has left me feeling lost - like I’m floating in a void. Occasionally I will touch down in a moment of clarity, grasp a sliver of insight, and then I‘m off again.

I don’t often feel stagnant or uninspired - for that I am grateful. However I have been overwhelmed by fear, the darkness crashing down on me like a wave. In those moments I feel like a tiny child in a vast, dark room. I try to tiptoe myself out of that terrifying room the same way I did when I was a tiny child - through my imagination. I fantasize, I imagine beauty, grace and light. I grasp on to that tendril of light and pull myself up.

This conversation is helping - the sense that I’m not alone in sending out these tendrils. We are making a net of light that will hold us up in these dim days.

Stay well,

Kitty