Benefits and Conundrums(and the Netherland Dance Theater 2)

                Each day, I sit at one of the intern desks at Soho Press or at Folio Literary Agency and I realize that I’m exactly where I want to be right now. Wiping down tables to get my name on the radar of one of the successful literary agents around me. Sifting through poorly edited manuscripts and proposals for “the latest must-have book for CEOs.” On the ominous, thirteenth floor of an office building right on Union Square—though it’s labeled as the fourteenth—watching protests pass by far below on Broadway, and, when I’m not here, I’m relaxing in a world-class theater—feeling far richer than I actually am—or sitting in a four-star hotel with complimentary slippers and overnight shoe shines, breaking off 19-cent banana after 19-cent banana. Imagining the claustrophobic, unventilated apartment I’ll be in once this semester’s over… I’m living the life.

                Though those are some significant benefits—and conundrums—that come with New York City life and Coe’s semester-long program, the real takeaways will be the connections sucking up at Folio and struggling through manuscripts will get me; I’m witnessing world-class graphic art, dance, music, film, and drama events more regularly than I may ever be able to absorb later in life; and I’m getting the inspiration every writer needs to feel like they are, in fact, going to make it.

 

                This past weekend, I got to see two absolutely spectacular events: a production of the vampire-centric play, Let the Right One In, which was spectacularly set and casted—and truly gut-wrenching at points—with, albeit, a few clichés; and the Netherlands Dance Theater 2 troupe.

                At the Joyce Theater, the dance—described only as a “contemporary” dance performance—utilized, in comparison to all other dance forms I’d seen, more abstract and, at times, bizarre thematic decisions in order to produce dances like “I New Then” which featured a group continuously switching between rebellious and cohesive attitudes. It began with just two men dancing with one another, first in absolute unison then dancing complementary to one another and subsequently to their own independent dances; the first few minutes of the dance gave an impression of breaking apart, expanding, and rebellion against the restrained unison in the opening as a spotlight on the two men slowly expanded. One of the men broke off into a solitary, restrained, in-tempo pace down the center of the stage and back, taking steps small enough to barely indicate actual movement. He marked himself as a constant in the production—the one thing that, until the very end, never changed.

Meanwhile, several other dancers began joining the dance; men and women together for a moment, only to break off into other couples, same-gender more often than not, blurring together traditional images of heterosexual couples with images of two men or two women dancing equally intensely, though not necessarily romantically, with one another. Countless relationships distinguished themselves, some easily identifiable as romantic by their close holds and their focused expressions while some were clearly more friend-like and, still, others caught got up in interpretably reluctant relationships; two women, at one point, danced around each other, as if in a romantic relationship, but never touched. Yet, on top of all this, there were blatantly comedic moments such as when dancers continuously fell like a doll each time the the word “fall” occurred in the lyrics. The combination created a perfect mix of intrigue while presenting countless relationships to interpret, including the full cast’s unity which was continuously changing rather than a constant truth.

Reinvigorated

I’ll admit this: writing started to lose its priority spot for me a couple of months ago. Writing a short story, working on my screenplay—even reading!—started to be put comfortably on the back burner, and, though it frustrated me that I wasn’t producing material, I was enjoying other things. Yet, here I was, working at a literary agency and a publisher on real-life material that is being published; I discovered that I would be responsible for proposing book ideas myself as part of one of my internship programs. I don’t know what had changed so drastically, but I was losing the urge that I had previously had—every time I left home or interacted with other readers—to write.

Finally, that’s changed. I look back at the productions I’ve seen in these past three weeks and the opportunities I’ve had at my internships and realize that, collectively, it has all reminded me just how much I enjoy storytelling, whether in a cynical, people-hating zookeeper’s voice or that of a Progeria-diagnosed, seventeen-year-old-but-not-stereotypically-teenage boy. Among the five art forms we’re studying here—drama, graphic art, film, and dance—dance and music have somehow inspired me the most—though drama, of course, has reminded me of just how fantastic a well-written voice or well-constructed character can make me feel. But dance and music—two art forms that hardly use words at all—have given me real moods to delve into.

We saw a film, Girlchild Diaries, which was about the evolution of a strange, independent dance-centric production by Meredith Monk as it began in the 1970s and was later reproduced in 1993 and afterward. The production, while being a complete load of what the hell is going on…? at a few points, brought to mind questions like: Why is it that we become older? Wouldn’t it be just as natural-appearing for us to become younger as time goes on? And: What, if any correlation is there between mental and physical age?

The production, which I and everyone else has simply thought to be strange at first, spoke to me in huge ways a day, two days, four days later, and I realized that I don’t write for characters; I write to examine the world and delve into questions that I can’t answer with what I’ve been given in my own life; I use a character’s life to experiment and to inspire myself.

So now I’m back to writing a short story recently retitled to be “Zoonoses”—a story about a zookeeper who, from the start, has a real passion for animals and, as time goes on, lets this passion expand deeper into a real cynicism toward people and resultant lack of association with either humans or animals. And I’m back to challenging myself, this time with a description of the macaque life that is meant to be, at least in some way, “beautiful.” (If you don’t know macaques, look one up and you’ll understand why I phrase this as a “challenge.”)