As I descend down the rabbit hole of grant applications (chasing the rabbit with the clock) and enter the whirlwind of producing mania following my second creative development of The Last Princess of Lebanon, I’m taking this Saturday afternoon to reflect on the journey so far—the blessings, the curses, and everything that comes with the territory of making deeply personal work… solo (good lord, why?).
I’ve been incredibly fortunate during this second residency to collaborate with remarkable artists. Aleea Monsour, my dramaturg, gentle ear, and “voice therapist” (you’ll understand if you read on), has been invaluable. Samira El Koussa, my musician, Dabke and Arabic teacher, and all-around diva extraordinaire, continues to teach me just how Lebanese I truly am. Anna Whitaker, a sound design guru and dear friend, is someone I trust implicitly. Penny Challen, an exceptional and enthusiastic designer, seems capable of making anything happen. These collaborations have infused this residency with energy, propelling the work forward as I took their golden nuggets of ideas into the studio to explore further.
Sharing the work before it was finished was daunting. My inner perfectionist squirmed with each reading I gave to people I respect. But I realised that sitting on the work any longer would have been a waste of time. It’s amazing how the smallest comment can send a section in a whole new direction.
For example, Penny suggested, “What if we played with shadows?”—something I hadn’t considered. And just like that, a new movement section was born and reformed. Or when Aleea pointed out that my key motif is actually the mulberry tree, not the gumtree. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Your gal here loves a motif, but too many can muddle the message. I’ve found a delicious new challenge in scriptwriting, which demands ultimate specificity for clarity. In my dance work in the past I’ve enjoyed there being room for multiple meanings and interpretations. My mind naturally spirals through depths, incorporating many elements in a kind of cause-and-effect inception. While I love this complexity, for this work, I want to speak clearly to a broader audience. I want to use the specificity of words and theatre to deliver a message of pain and hope alongside the depth of movement. I want to speak. Which, for a dancer I think could be a huge deal—so huge that I’ve been literally losing my voice. As “woo-woo” as it sounds, I think it’s connected to my emotions as much as the strain of endless readings.
Image by Georgia Haupt
So, what’s been happening? Honestly, it’s been a rollercoaster of glee, excitement, frustration, complete perplexity, and deep fear about how this story, both mine and my family’s, will be perceived. I anticipated this weight, but as the piece starts to be shared, it’s become more challenging. How can I deliver this complex story—filled with trauma and triumph—in a not only digestible, but delicious way, in today’s turbulent environment of excessive and often distressing information? How do I do that within the space of a short month-long residency, while juggling life and everything else that a solo show demands? Each day presents a new task or problem I didn’t know existed. For instance, I didn't know many venues lock in their programs more than a year in advance and this often doesn’t align with funding rounds. And the incredible art to wording an email that’s friendly, personable, and gets things done without being presumptuous. I don’t know how anyone does it. I don’t know how I’m doing it. Am I doing it? I can say I’ve been completely obsessed with the creative process, pouring my heart into pages, getting absorbed to the point of forgetting basic things like drinking water. It feels like prolonged labour—giving birth to this creative child. Sometimes, I have restless nights, getting up to scribble in my diary or write strange poetry in my phone notes. Thoughts come at inconvenient times, and I often lose them. It feels like life is too busy to be an artist. Lately, I feel like if I had my way, I would just drop everything and become a recluse.
However, I’m blessed with many incredible creative friends, and I do take refuge in their company. Watching them shine, all doing it their own way despite the challenges, is both incredibly inspiring and sometimes a little worrying. Burnout is everywhere. I’m told it’s getting harder, especially since COVID, though the issues pre-date the pandemic. Artists, especially independents, are struggling. The world is speeding up - there’s a real theory about it Jade Brider tells me (my favourite existential girly) the earth’s rotation is literally speeding up - science fr. This kind of crazed fast pace often directly opposes the creative process itself, which requires boredom. Who has time for boredom?! Oh, how I long for it. The last time I remember being bored was as a kid, hanging out in Dalby on a summer afternoon during school holidays. I’d say, “There’s nothin’ to do in this town” (I had a much broader accent then, which I realised when reading old journals—don’t know how many times I said “reckon,” but it was a lot). I wish I knew then how precious that nothingness was. I try to steal moments of it when I can—taking a stroll on the beach or through the forest, though lately, my mind races as I do so, and I have to remind myself to take in what I’m seeing. I’ve been meditating every morning with Margi Brown Ash’s Sangha fro Artists, which has been an anchoring lifeline for me. My morning ritual includes meditating, vitamins, and rolling out my persistent plantar fasciitis—an overuse injury I’m still trying to shake (Chant, my physio, I hope you’re reading this). I’ve been lifting weights, because as a freelance dancer I still have to maintain a level of fitness to jump into a show at any moment, but also for my mental health. I get some sense of control (in a life that otherwise feels often out of my control) from seeing small improvements in numbers each week - although I hate the fluorescent lighting and teenage boy smell. On Sundays, I’ve started writing lists that plan every hour of my day, Monday to Sunday. I try to give myself weekends, but that rarely happens. Sometimes my days feel like one giant, never-ending to-do list, like I’m a cowboy lassoing my brain from creative to logical and back again (I naturally sit in the creative, so lassoing the logic is more like taming a bull). As I said, I long for boredom.
But whinging aside, the good thing about roller coasters is the thrill. I’ve always loved rollercoasters actually. I’ve always liked a challenge, which is one of the things that drew me to dancing—the absolute rigour and physical release. What’s kept me in the arts, though, is the questioning and reimagining of new futures. I so believe in what I and my peers do. I believe in this project and what I’m trying to say—which I’m rediscovering every day. Refining, refining, refining. Fighting with myself to allow the process to take time, even with money, momentum, expectations, deadlines, career goals, and timelines hanging over me. I keep coming back to this question, and I ask it of all my fellow #strugglingartists: What’s it all for if there isn’t any joy? I mean, is our art really worth killing ourselves over? As important as I think it is, it’s not that important. Maybe the reality is that we need to take more time. We might make less work, but we need to value ourselves and what it costs. We need to connect more. My god, if this solo work has taught me anything, it’s that. Let’s not do this alone. It’s not only less productive; it’s kind of depressing.
A dear friend, artist and producer extraordinaire Sandi Woo (who often talks me down from a nervous spin) said to me, “Nadia, it’s the fallacy of a solo work! It’s never solo!” It’s impossible. We think it’s cheaper, but at what cost? While this process has been “good” for me, and I’ve learned so much, I don’t think I’ll ever do it again. Please, if I do, somebody stop me. I think I could have learned more quickly if I’d done it together with others. Then again, funding structures and industry demands rarely support this kind of work. And if you can’t sell your work, you can’t sustainably make it. So here we are. (Is the real fallacy the idea of sustainability? We’ll find out.)
I likened it to having a child earlier; this is my “elephant child”—thank you, Jacob Watton. She’s a big bubba. I think Nathan Sibthorpe would call it a “Horcrux” work—a little piece of my soul, my he[art] under stage lights. Ironically, my friends are starting to have real babies right now, and as I comfort them through their morning sickness and back pain, I feel weirdly connected to them through my creative process, my elephant baby. It’s painful sometimes, but we do it because of what it can offer us and, hopefully, the world if we raise it right. What I’m trying to do now is take one step forward and then another. Trying not to forget to drink water. Stealing moments to stretch in the sunshine. Taking myself to new places to enjoy the journey of making. Why not embrace solving the puzzle?
Nobody really wants to deliver their baby alone. I’m so grateful this second development has involved new artists, fresh eyes, and so many wonderful peers and mentors championing me as I push and deep breathe through it all. So many people reach out their hands, and as I write this blog, I realise just how many—too many to mention. There have been times I’ve wanted to run away, but these small encouragements and acts of kindness pull me back in. I think, okay, let’s go. I throw down my sweat towel like a rhythmic gymnast (seriously watch those videos, amazing) and staunch my way into the rink, pushing away the fear of complete audacity, imposter syndrome, and all the likes of “Who does she think she is?” and I tell myself: You’re just trying to make art that changes the world, okay? And then I laugh, because why not?