Thesis Draft 1
For October 21st Feedback Sessions
The very MFA language I use to summarize my thesis is that, "I choreograph overloaded loops containing too much information for a single watch which create choreographic systems that include audience as active editor. There is a choice that my audiences must make about where to look and what to take in, that reflects the critical choice of where we spend our attention daily."
The work I have made leading up to the thesis has fallen within the realm of Desktop Performance. Of which my working definition is; Desktop Performance is performance which takes the Desktop, a graphical user interface (GUI), that was designed to represent numerical information aesthetically, and repositions those aesthetics from the engineering tradition to the performance tradition.
In the thesis project, I reposition said aesthetic numerical performance tradition to hone in on a few main things but most notably: mmmmmm why does everything feel so insane right now? And am I the only one who wants to change their entire closet, hair, and makeup to better represent an online persona that they have barely manicured since Covid started?
My anxieties of where my attention is being directed have been useful in choreographing a spider-like forced high arch physicality with a teetering, infantile rhythm and dramatic flailing limbs. And it is also through teaching that the work has taken shape: teaching my how to reverse-engineer desktop aesthetics into choreographic spectacle class aka multimedia performance art. The final work aims to start with an ushering of the audience into a familiar state of scrolling consumption and develop through a process of looping and building, a logic to what is being built. From there the logic will either be lost and the chaos of the system will have to just continue to be built or the audience will seamlessly follow along until a new performance is revealed, one which resists a passive scrolling state with moments of redirection, humor, and surprise until it ends. We will see what happens!
These days, I am drawing heavily from the fear I feel when the images and short form videos my phone sends to me are the first lights I see before the sun. a process which can be recalled as such:
7am screenfear is a fear for my own body which leads to a fear for other people's bodies, and of other people's bodies which is based in my fear of not being able to distinguish reality from virtuality, or knowing there are people making decisions about bodies who are unable to be critical in this distinction, which makes me fearful of quick movements in large crowds and of not knowing where the exits are when i'm in those large crowds and of not being strong enough or trained enough or fearful enough to react well enough or coordinated enough, and seeing dance and choreography as a way to be more empowered, more prepared, and perhaps more stunning!
Understanding fear as an engineered experience is the first step towards engineering a better experience on and offline and to do so through dance allows a live engagement with audience in an ephemeral, invitational, and improvisatory space. And in a world where we're not sure what could happen next, engaging in that space feels like a good skill to build, or at least that is the logic the dance attempts to operate under. While in the dance, the dancers are acting as if this is very serious work, this humor thing, this building a green screen thing, and it infects the performance, allows it to be throwaway just enough while not loosing the emotion or the physical particularity.
In order to create a successful production, the world the choreography builds must understand the value of engineering emotion through digital manipulation of time, space, light, and audio. To better explain to my dancers the skills they have already been building as college students I look to how I first learned to use the performance of the screen as a tool: a place to create beauty. To create Stunning. Stunning-ness.
The processes of posting something Stunning is a process of navigating a public market of sexuality within an attention economy. This feels more clearly understood when investigating how the body of the young dancer acts as bargaining tool and currency.
My choreographic sense of beauty and positively enforced aesthetic has been irrevocably developed to understand and converse with algorithmic and human-driven metrics of desire, which is main currency of the attention economy and is measured in likes, saves, and shares. Posting is my primary method of public-facing time keeping and one of the most consistent written documentation practices I have that includes an investigation of the body. And I think I'm not alone!
I settle on the title, "Stunning" for the piece because it does bring up a lot of emotions for me personally to recall moments of creating or performing that makes me feel truly ... Stunning. And it feels like a broad enough term to capture whatever people want to take out of the piece and to hold the cast together in a sizable vessel. Maybe that's a lame answer, but I also imagine people saying "wow that was stunning!" Which makes me laugh and feel like I've beaten them to the punch.
But also, there is language I will forever hold onto from the lobby, particularly, "I want you to know, you are stunning."
Spoken to me! I want you to know, I need you to know that you are seen and you are loved and you are worthy, I don't know ... it felt full and like it reached into me and spoke to something I was hiding. After hearing these words I felt a panic arise, I felt seen in a way I didn't know if I was ready for, I had felt worried before about engaging with performance that is not engineered enough for my audience to understand that I understood that what I do up there is a bit... that I was trying my hardest to be stunning with this clear distinction of curtains closing . . .
And so, It began to dawn on me that a major impetus for wanting to engineer choreographic systems that include audience as active editor, not only has to do with reverse engineering the attention economy, but to hide in plain sight. To be create a space where I can become etherial and floaty and beautiful in my fullest form all while retaining the safety of also being hidden.
When trying to be stunning, I often feel so so so monstrous.
And so, this is where I begin my creative process. A main portion of this first draft is also my contracts that I created for my dancers. I feel as though it is my small part to combat this unspoken economic conundrum within our loosely defined attention economy and within the broken university system, and broken American arts system. The contract is adapted from a real contract I used when I was a freelancer Zoom Dance Artist and has been adapted to fit the rehearsal process we are currently creating in. The rest of this thesis draft is that contract followed by some stunning images I am using as inspiration and some key texts which I am drawing from and which I am open to hearing suggestions about.
CONTRACT"STUNNNING" AKA "ADDICTED TO GLAMOUR" AKA "GOOB's THESIS" AKA "THE BIG SHOW" AKA "GAYS WITH GUNS" AKA "GOOBYS LOOPDEY LOOP"
Gabriel Bruno Eng Gonzalez | ms. Goob & friends co.
Date: October 14th 2024
Duration: October 14th 2024 - Feburary 1st, 2025
Position: Activator & Performer for STUNNING (a Graduate Dance Thesis)
WATCH THIS! LOL (a video recording of my thesis presentation)
CONTEXTCONTEXTCONTEXTCONTEXTCONTEXTCONTEXTCONTEXTCONTEXTCONTEX
- Scope of the work
- Roles
- Schedule
- Payment
- Consensual Agreements
- Termination! (LOL DONT GET FIRED!)
SCOPE OF THE WORK
- You are an activator, performer, co-investigator of the choreographic frame for STUNNING, which means being present, attending scheduled rehearsals, and contributing to the extent that you feel comfortable with in our discussion and movement sessions. There will be moments when you will be asked to become a witness for the space, in which case your role will shift into more of a dramaturgical supporter.
- The rehearsal process will always include check-in moments and will now include a check-in specifically around ownership / authorship feelings that may arise as the process unfolds. These have not been scheduled yet, but will happen either once a month or once every two months. Anyone can request this conversation happen with more frequency as needed.
- We will rehearse Monday - Thursday 3-5pm in Nevada A.
This will be our Google Drive link, our Are.na Link, and our Miro Link
Roles
- Choreographer, "Gabriel Bruno Eng Gonzalez"
- Lead Dramaturg, TBD (Announced Monday 10/21) roles include: co-attending or helping to prepare for production meetings, taking rehearsal notes, running group sections while i work on other sections,
- Performers / Creatures / Digital Avatars / FREAKS,
Nawal, Marlee, Brooklyn, Tessa, Avi, Gabriella, Emma, Yuno, Cheyenne, Kai, and Jenny
Schedule
27 Rehearsals until Designer Run- Oct 15,16,17,21,22,23,24,28,29,30,31,Nov 4,5,6,7,11,12,13,14,18,19,20,21,DEC 2,3,4,5
Rehearsal Showings Pending dates right now: October 24th, November 7th, November 21st, December 5th - CAN YOU COME?
First week Plan: Oct 14 - 17 - Ppt. Party, Costume Finalizations, Tech introductions/ Clear Plan for what to ask for on the 25th
Week 2&3: Oct 25th - production meeting, Have Tech needs Finalized, Set movement before music comes in, have a showing, Big chunk of work load
Week 4: Election Week
Week 4-6: Finalize movement with music, Finalize tech/ roles, Run with costume manipulation, Final CHunk of MAKING/SETTING/REHEARSING
Week 7: recover from fall break, prepare for winter break, prepare for designer run, Set everything, run, run, run, run, run, everyone should know what theyre doing and what the show looks like, feels like
Payment
This performance offers no monetary payment, however, I want to compensate my dancers through offering ways they can be better prepared to apply for festivals through local grants like the Urbana Arts Grant and Danceworks Chicago, as well as larger grants I've previously been awarded through Fulbright, Humanities Research Institute, and The Mellon foundation. We will share and build makeup skills, video editing, website design, and grant writing which is all a part of the 'payment'. I believe I have had a great success at being able to level with undergrads and operate in a way that respect the huge life/world changes that they have gone through in adolescence that has made them wary of institutions and policy that they see no value in. It is my belief that the level of accommodations is a direct correlation to the level of hurt and confusion. And I can directly interfere with this disillusion.
"Breaking out of dominant global systems of exchange and value to bring into focus narratives related to alt-systems.
Money as a “universal” system for expressing value has long prioritized speculative views of the world based on antiquated methods of measuring and storing information. Types of exchange and value creation between people and communities become increasingly complex as people express themselves across networks that blur the boundaries of what a “community” is. What do we collectively value that escapes the traditional marketplace?
As our current notion of individual ownership and intellectual property becomes overwhelmingly challenged by modern technologies, how do we begin to negotiate new forms of trust and value-creation on both local and global scales?
What are our new modes of survival?" - from Rhibozome Microgrant Money as Medium call
Consensual Agreements
- You hereby assign Gabriel Bruno Eng Gonzalez all rights, titles and interests in the work produced or developed under this agreement, [specifically the choreographic frameworks, driving questions, improvisational scores, title of the work, design & dramaturgical elements, sonic choices]; if you wish to use or implement any of these elements directly for your own work or for your own portfolio, please set up a conversation with Gabriel to discuss / ask for consent and give credit where credit is due.
- All material that is generated through the improvisational scores that is coming directly from your body as an performer, these belong to you. If Gabriel will use any of your material in future iterations of their work, they will also commit to asking for your consent and giving credit where credit is due. Let’s all do our best to practice naming where things come from especially if what inspires us is coming from BIQTPOC/BIPOC folks.
- All performers will be credited in all marketing materials as well as will be credited verbally in any virtual talks that arise as part of the programming or future of this work. In printed / internet materials, I will say something along the lines of, “STUNNING was created w/ the time, energy, support, love, & input of [xyz]”
- Upon request and pending the approval of other performers, performers can access video recordings / footage of rehearsals which will be stored in a shared Google Drive. If needed urgently for an application or something like this, please give Gabriel at least two weeks notice! Gabriel/Lead Dramaturg will also find a way to share excerpts of notes they are taking that feel relevant to share with the group so stay tuned for this.
- Virtual Rehearsals will most likely be recorded for the purposes of sharing with Lead Dramaturg when they cannot attend our collective rehearsals. Gabriel agrees to ask for consent prior to the beginning of these rehearsals. Along these lines, Gabriel will also ask for your consent to use any footage or photographs for marketing and/or fundraising purposes (via social media, my website or the venue’s website).
- Regarding Rehearsal Visitors: Gabriel agrees to asking for performers consent / approval for any rehearsal visitors listed outside the "ROLES" assignments to be able to attend collective sessions including, but not limited to my students, out of department graduate students, visiting artists, etc.
- Everything we discuss or share within the collective and smaller group spaces is confidential. Please ALWAYS ask for permission / consent from any one in the process if you wish to share a story or something that deeply moved or impacted you. Confidentiality obligations survive termination of this agreement. Moral of the Story: ASK FOR CONSENT.
- Anything Else?
Termination
- If you wish to opt-out of the rehearsal process, please set up a conversation with Gabriel as soon as possible so that the group has time to adjust. You will be compensated for the sessions you attended and were present for.
- From this Document:
"The Department of Dance believes strongly that preparing for performance is integral to the life of a developing artist. Improper preparation can lead to exhaustion and mental duress, overuse and traumatic injuries, and extended healing time. In an effort to reduce these unfortunate side-effects, the Department of Dance requires consistent class participation in order to qualify for performance opportunities.
The Department of Dance has a universal attendance policy for each of our classes. Students who observe this policy are eligible to rehearse and perform in any concert during the year.
If a student becomes delinquent (exceeds their allotted unexcused absence quota) in their attendance in any Dance Department course, regardless of situation, the instructor will inform the Director of the Undergraduate or Graduate program and the student. The Directors will notify the choreographer and student, and the student will immediately be removed from ALL department performances. During this time, the student should attend all of their other classes, but should drop their performance credits. An understudy should step in as the primary performer.
This exclusionary period lasts for all works rehearsing for the duration of the semester in question. In the proceeding semester, the student may rejoin any works in which they were cast in as a full cast member. If the student exceeds their absences in 3 or more dance department courses in a given semester, they will be ineligible to audition for performance opportunities in the following semester.
There will be no exceptions to this policy."
Sign me! I am agreeing to this! I am signing knowing what this says and what is expected of me! I am prepared to follow this by what is written and to change what i do not want to agree to!
xoxo
Goob
bibliography for more writing...
Novels, Poems, and Memoirs
1. Justin Chin Selected Works - edited by Jennifer Joseph
not many books of poems have grabbed my attention as much as this collection by Justin Chin. I picked it up after reading his poem "Lick My Butt" online, in which, he declares his intentions behind selecting sexual partners, and being an object of desire and the
cycles cycles cycles …
of life, of sex, of disease, of death of greed of war of life
And it's the first time I heard someone self-identify as an "Angry Ethnic Fag"
In a review/interjection by Jennifer Joseph after the poem, Chinese Resturant, Jennifer says, "First, He gets everyone laughing - the audience is fully on board with his sly pokes at familiar cliches and knowing caricatures - then WHAM! he lowers the boom, unfirls the sails, and there's the fierce yearning, stark vulnerability, profound emotional and political truths that no one saw coming but were so clear and real and present and undeniable."
Which excites me! I mean, it is similar to what I am arguing looping of moment and video allows for and similar to what i think of when i think of a successful integration of technology and dance. It understands the politics that allowed for this tech to be used on stage, it understands the viewer and the performance as a political event, the gathering and the rehearsals and the institution that goes into uplifting this type of show, the unpaid labor that is normalized and cyclically recreated through a false narrative of scarcity. It's a cycle and it's ever so clear when I think of the university cycle...
2. The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell illustrations by Ned Asta
I picked it up for the title, then found out it was a play, then found out it was being read in queer reading clubs across the country in 2023 because it was being reprinted for the first time since the 70's. I think I have found many a silly brilliant lines in this text so far. And it feels… engage-with-able for undergrads.
I mean I feel nervous at times to truly speak my mind on the current state of the world with young people who I am also giving college credit to, and grading…. but this has such useful language!
It talks about faggotry and community and uses these definitions and these terms verbatim in a way that is clear and I feel great that they've been written by someone else. I do think a lot of my writing will come out of the conversations I have with the young people in my process. I mean it's a different conversation then the one I'll have with Adanya or a lover or a professor or a dancer in my cohort. which also may find its way into my thesis writing.
3. The Sluts & .GIF Novels - Dennis Cooper
I rented The Sluts from the library because of someone's thirsttrap on their instagram story!
ok!
im fine with admitting that, but I found that when i read the book in public I felt … nervous! The cover is provocative, the content is violent and sexual, it reads like an online forum post where anonymous horny username title, after anonymous horny username title, replies to post after post of some of the most perverse and violent sexual imagery i've ever read. Like a dark web comment section, that eventually builds into narrative.
It captures a certain way information is disseminated through the internet where you're reading people's opinions and unfiltered, possibly intoxicated, possibly trolling opinions. And you read it, in this case, in the case of a novel, as facts. because there's really no other way to get through it, and it's filtered through this pen of the author.
At times, Cooper chooses to black out sections, have a moderator come in and say "this is wrong, this is too violent, this is against a certain overarching guidelines" which is interestingly adhered to, understood. The referee is more valuable here then the general laws, then the general socially accepted cues, because they are fringe people talking about snuff films and twinks who are hitchiking from Seattle to LA. they are not protected people. And they are engaging in content that further isolates them. So power structures form, and roles form, and I loved seeing that aspect. Because it captures the parasocial relationship I've learned to expect from forums, discord, Dance100 OL. and One that I feel like really informs this idea i have of the sexual market of instagram.
4. Glitch Feminism - Legacy Russell
A text i return to regularly when thinking of growing up on the internet. I would also like to get my hands on Black Meme, the new text by Russell but just haven't gotten into it yet. What glitch feminism has offered is a philosophical approach to gender that I feel so grateful for. I mean, it is work that offers a meaning to the word, "glitch" a technology term turned everything term and specifically applies it to gender and asks "if glitch is true of gender", if maleness is a refusal of femininity (Butler) and femaleness the opposite, then glitch and the slippage that happens from a messiness results in an opening of the term of glitch, and an opening of the term trans…
Glitch, Trans, Doll, are internet terms I have yet to dive into but have been bombarded with this summer via social media is 'doll' and it's one i'm still trying to figure out, one that takes me into exciting new ideas of gender expression and performance, one that comes, to me from Keioui Keijaun Thomas and Fran Tirado
"Focusing on camouflage and metamorphosis as modes of survival and transcendence, Thomas’s new work envisions a time where “dolls”—a word loosely meaning trans women so flawless they’re no longer considered real—have survived a mass extinction event. Within her imagined, speculative environment, Thomas asks, “Why are dolls the only ones left? Perhaps, it is because trans femmes (often, but not always) are forged in nocturnality, where beauty and intelligence must learn to supersede time and space.”- Come Hell or High Femmes
back to glitch feminism…
The glitch body is inherently a threat to normative systems, just as digital geography is a threat to those who uphold the fantasy of that which is "real life".
an argument for there being no distinction for irl and afk (in real life///away from keyboard), tied to an argument for non-binary… i guess….. existence…. and a warning to not repeat the failure of gendered construction we are witnessing crumble in real time… im about it! im excited!
and!
i feel resistant to it because maybe it can be at times - - - philosophical/academic - - - in the way that makes me frustrated in general - - - the talking and theorizing. i mean, it's become something i think about daily… the desire to not replicate the systems which currently and historically turn us against each other, made us believe in our non-power, fueled our inaction, our doom - - - being inside of the academy makes me feel a bit frustrated! if it can't happen here… what hope is there... is how i feel a lot of the time. . . especially recently... but maybe it's especially due to being in illinois... sorry.
i guess i am just feeling Russell's warning, and also sometimes feeling, like its a bit too late… too late to become what we see ourselves being, what we see our systems being, what we see our truths being,
and i wonder,
all the time, how much of that has to do with being ~~~ here ~~~ irl ~~~ so i'm pushed to do things like create a contract for my dancers
and write in a way that strays away from convention
and publication
and review
but is it too formless?
i look to the next text for answers…
5. Reverse Cowgirl by McKenzie Wark
I began to generate my term of "genderless void of chatrooms" and "audience as editor" mostly from Glitch Feminism but Wark's text took a step into a memoir direction which built upon what we were reading in CO's class and felt explicitly and extremely sexual and gender-fucked. I think Russell's text does a similar job to detailing how chatrooms and sexuality in the chatroom emerges especially in the discussion of sexuality with a stranger,
with a strange unknown body (unknown gender, unknown age, unknown humanity (what if i lost my digital cherry sexting with an AI???))
But what I appreicate so much about Wark's text is the reliance on IRL body to tell the story. Part memoir, part marxist interpretation of body art, or the body as art, I think what drew me so much to this text is the initial self-hatred… the self-destruction which felt so similar to my own. And the way i notice young people acting towards physicality in their dancing, towards injury, and effort.
The distrust of the societal value of ones body especially one deemed 'unfit' from society is one I am always underline exploring in my work, or at least working from, acknowledging from, trying to create contracts from. I remember being skinny - always - being skinny to the point of being unhealthy, and in betrayal of a gendered body. And so does Wark. . .
"i always figure things out while on drugs. As if drug-time were one continuous time into which to plunge out of straight time. This body, for the first time, convinced not only itself, but another, that a male language was no longer what it spoke. It will have to figure out how to speak another language of the body."(192)
the text, for me, offers language that captures a similarity to how i've experienced some dancing… some performance-time… these limited and real moments of transformation that happen around body… feel sooo known by me, performance has allowed that inbetween-ness to exist.
Example 1. the current DAI poster - I see that image and think. . . who is that person? what are they trying to communicate? They are clearly taking inspiration from the global discussions and trends and internet and they're doing it here. . . but why here and why now and does that make a difference that this image of me in a dress and a wrestlers helmet is seen on a bus in rural illinois?
Example 2. my personal exploration in choreography with glitch, clothing, and movement loops which allow for redefinitions of terms like audience, editor, theme, and penetration… circlusion. transforming, through a constant re-imaginging and layering of image and definitions which have previously annoyed me with the limitations and inaccuracies that come from their regididy.
Example 3. An email i never sent to El about gender, performing in Steps in the street, and Roxane's Teaching which focuses on a very specific being in your body which is uncomfy because it is so gendered. The email i never sent El basically was like El! I admire you so much and i don't know how to say that without it coming off weird! But I am going through crisis after crisis about what is allowed in this town and I really love how much you toe the line and live your truth.
6. Horse Barbie by Gina Rocero
This is the most explicitly "trans" text besides reversecowgirl that I have on this list. A text about transformation and secrets not due to ones familial ties or personal interior but from something more about The Culture. I read this in a moment in graduate school where I was safe, where i felt safely. Due to the resulting financial stability of my Mellon Foundation money and lack of teaching responsibilities in the second year, and live-in boyfriend who made life less serious then it had ever been, I felt safe.
Which allowed a lot to come rushing back, and I had to deal with that.
Here in illinois, I found myself in this committed relationship, renting an entire house, and living this life which, prior to this, felt so impossible. For someone like me, someone, I am still uncovering and becoming, but to this point have fallen into a trap of thinking - no future or present could ever provide such comforts unless there were some monumental life change be it a sacrifice of truth or a major adaptation, a cover up. If i were to pursue dance, and pursue gender expression, I would not be safe.
but here I was, safe.
I am not outright admitting a 100% perfect alignment with the story of Gina, I do not know a trans woman experience. I have not experienced that. And I have felt foreign in this body, of course, who hasn't in their own body. I have felt foreign in this country too.
It is the Aisan American experience to know these worlds. It is the Asian American experience to know a country which rewards a awkwardness, and a liminality in ones gender. I often feel like a spy. I often feel like I'm closeted. And it completely infects what I create, and how it comes out of me in performance. Reading this made that clear.
7. Shotgun Seamstress The Complete Zine Collection Osa Atoe:
is a zine by & for Black PUNKS, QUEERS, MISFITS, FEMINISTS, ARTISTS & MUSICIANS, WEIRDOS and the people who support us. This zine is meant to support Black People who exist within predominantly white subcultures, and to encourage the creation of our own.
8. Dancing in Blackness A memoir by Halifu Osumare Forward by Brenda Bixon Gottschild
p. 13 "The Performativity of the body - everyday gestures and body language - is another conceptual way of interrogating race, as well as gender, sexuality, or class. Susan Manning uses the cultural theorists on this subject, such as Judith Butler, Eric Lott, and Michael Rogin, to explore how audiences viewed early modern dance by white and black dancers, while illuminating the predominance of culture in determining who we conceive ourselves to be as Americans: "It is not nature but culture that renders the multiplicity of lived bodies 'feminine' or 'masculine,' 'queer' or 'straight,' 'black' or 'white,' and so on. Performativity is not a monolithic social operation. Ratherm differently placed historical subjects conceptualize the relations between physical bodies and social meanings differently." The terms Black dance and white dance might be ambiguous, but one this is objectively sure: black and white people were/are surely "differently placed historical subjects." African Americans' experience in the United States has been, and continues to be, very different from how most white Americans experience America, creating different meanings associated with the everyday lived experience in the body. As Andrew Hacker told us, the United States is "two nations: black and white, seperate, hostile, amd un-equal." Yet the lingering guiding principle of the United States, "liberty and justice for all," contains the potential for closing the gap between these "two nations," even culturally and artistically."
"After almost three years in Europe, I was ready to take on the United States again with all of what Bernice Reagon calls its "insanity." American complexity is based on contradictions, ironies, cultural juxtapositions, the profit motive often as first consideration, and, most imporrtantly, its black culture at the center of its national identity. This latter characteristic is taken for granted while being its saving grace." p.78
9. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
first chapter of Parable of the Sower is Saturday, the 20th of July 2024. Change is ongoing, change is life, everything changes in some way, god is the second law of thermodynamics: entropy. I think of being a nomadic person with no more roots in California, i think of my grandparents fleeing Mao and building a life through an understanding of American Machines like cameras and sewing machines and english language in New Jersey society. And I think about what I'm going to have to learn how to build if shit starts to really go down here again.
10. The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
I read this this summer in preparation for thesis making. And it helped to think of athletics, sex, and writing as interconnected coping strategies for an addictive personality and forging new histories through the possibilities of art funded experiences and jobs. I return to it to find language about exhaustion and falling into relationships, and a changing body, and of fathers. She writes with such a succinct and clear, this is what happened, this is how i reacted, this is what i wanted this is what i did. that feels shameless and far removed from a lot of the anger. its also the first book i read that mentioned Dennis Cooper and made me write down at least 10 more authors to read.
11. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
a book on writing methods - i think of his trips to Europe and his devotion to a daily training practice and his rituals and how he can feel in each day, the day before. It makes me think about the length of this program and the rituals of endurance and diligent class taking that has been requested of me through the program. But it also gives me language about how to work solo that i find incredibly idk icky! Like not good strategies for working as a collective, very good strategies for plowing through to the next goal but missing everything along the way in pursuit of it, which is a state I have been in before, often, and isn't one i really want to harness towards any goal even if it is a creative or athletic feat. I suppose i include it on this list as a warning.
12. Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin
a book on defining ones self in a society which is not ready to acknowledge you. i look to this book for new ways to write about fantasy, of writing yourself as monster. it is rich inspiration, choreographically, of a magical realism. of Being so confused and dispossessed and 20 something and nomadic in taiwan. It is a story which inspired the now common-language word for lesbian, like the word did not exist before this novel which is so powerful because this came out in the 80s i think. I read a translation of this and want to revisit again while I am making becasue it is already such a different headspace than me, she writes this mostly as an 18,19 year old - 21-22 year old which is the age of most of my cast.
13. The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor
all of brandons books give me such clarity into the state of american higher education. But this one is about writers and dancers in iowa in 2024! I read it and think about the scene where the poet masturbates and doesnt sleep for a day and then is finally able to submit to his writing cohort his story of the gordon head. Taylor's writing feels important in the modern conversation about art and money, but he also uses sexual violence in a shockingly loose way, and his characters in the book were so random and all had ancient fiordic like norse god names and i kept getting confused, but the scene where one of the main charcaters harshes on everyones writing for being too personal and then goes home and cries and drinks and smokes until he writes his first personal thing was super cathartic actually tho haha.
also...