I’ve been artisting for 26 years. More or less. I wrote at least seven grants before I got my first one.

Recently someone read my birth chart and said that while my mission is to shine because Leo is my rising sign, it takes a long time because my sun sign is Capricorn and it’s governed by Saturn. Saturn is a slow mover. But they go BIG. Imagine. It takes Saturn 28 years to do the full rotation – imagine all the places they go, what they see. I mean proverbially.

I envision the complex projects. Once I was pitching a really complicated project that involved so much producing. And the person said, why don’t you just make the piece on student dancers. And I was like, oh yeah, that would be simple. But. But. But. I’ll tell you why.

I did make that piece with the student dancers. And it wasn’t what I wanted, it was great research for what I wanted. Over the course of the next 4 years, I made the piece that I wanted to make with emerging professional dancers, and we toured it through schools and it has made an impact on more that 10,000 pre-teens, teenagers, their educators and programmers. Now that is something.

That was The Love Project. And it was a cheeky, sassy, sexy, super physical dance-theatre piece for 5 dancers talking about elements of healthy relationships.

I am so amazed at how far we’ve come. Suddenly. There’s a duet in The Love Project. It’s pretty sexy. It gets a lot of response from the audience. The pre-teens giggle, the teens gasp. It’s pretty great. For several years I remounted the piece with different casts, so there were many emerging dancers who got to do it. The duet is often danced by a gay man and a queer woman. It’s just how it happens. I keep wanting to remount it with two womxn. It isn’t ancient history – the last time we did it was the beginning of 2018. That’s not even 5 years ago. And it would have been scandalous. When we showcased the piece in Vancouver I was told by lots of educators (queer adults) that BC wasn’t as progressive as Ontario. This is hilarious (#FordNation). I digress. The point being, the work didn’t get booked in BC at all. And I’ve never remounted the duet on two womxn.

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Remember the touring show that came to your middle school or high school and changed your life? That showed you that there was something more out there than the self-involved, small world that seemed like everything, but was only a tiny piece of the very big universe?

That’s why I fought for The Love Project. Each time we remounted and toured it, the fee that the school paid was about $20 short of what it cost to pay the dancers for the day, me, and the day-rate rental car. Which means that each time we performed it, I volunteered and donated. BUT, 10,000 kids saw the piece. The teens who saw it at a high school dance conference stomped so long and whistled so loud and gushed so profusely afterwards. That’s why. (If only we could live on fumes and great feels.)

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So back to the big planets that go far. My favourite proverb, that I also feel is like a vitamin that I don’t want to swallow, is that if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. This as a maxim is hard for every part of my life.

During the pandemic I gathered my resources and decided to embark on a really big project. It’s funny because as it takes shape I wonder why it is taking so long. I mean I know. I didn’t know what it was going to be. I had to try a lot of things and as it’s my most autobiographical and most abstract work, it’s taken time to sort myself and it.

And it’s anything but a solo. Solos are fast. Ensembles with designed environments and interstitial installations and chorus’ mean a lot of people to coordinate, manage and pay. That’s not even any of the creative arting part.

And now that I’ve finally got it choreographed in broad strokes, I see where I want to go back in and dig and delve and craft and tickle and specify and make gut wrenchingly good each part. Anatomalia

We made a podcast during the last residency. It’s about big teams and long projects and how we dance to the music. It’s pretty good. Take a listen.

photo: Tristán Pérez-Martín;

dancers: Meagan O’Shea, Jennifer Dahl, Arantza Lopez Medina, Areli Moran Mayoral, Cathy Walsh