Arty party

I thought I'd do a bit of a blog post while I'm waiting for the latest version of a video I'm editing to upload. I've been sitting at the computer for the whole afternoon and my eyes are starting to feel all weird so we'll see how we go...

Last night we were back at CS for Arty Party, and I had a really fun time tending to the bar with L and giving people stupidly generous servings of wine in big plastic cups. I held hands with F (who is actually another L from a couple posts ago but two Ls is way too confusing!) over the bar and basked in the reflected glory of knowing such a precious someone that is completely charming and irresistible to the world in general - does that make sense? Like everyone wants to be their friend and you are one of the lucky ones that can call themselves that? I feel like that about a lot of the people that I hang out with so I am particularly blessed.

Me and D laughed together like we do whenever we see each other, watching in awe as F proved herself once again as some alien character out of a dream, expertly aware of every minute detail of her body and how to navigate each one perfectly. I am not a dancer (as anyone with half working eyes could gather) and I don't really know any other dancers except for F and a couple others by acquaintance. I always wonder what it would feel like to have the same passion and commitment to dancing as I do to music - what it would feel like to be so in control of my body, to know exactly what I was doing with it at all times (I imagine/assume that professional dancers rarely feel awkward within their bodies...)

As with any VCA run performance event there were performances that aimed for 'controversial', 'shocking' etc. I knew my friends and I are getting older when we were sat around the breakfast table today, talking about why such 'shock tactics' within performances are not super conducive to thoughtful content. I thought back to myself at 18, freshly admitted into the VCA and captured by lectures on synaesthesia, half inflated ego at the thought of being allowed in, and half desperately insecure and seeking to prove myself as an artist. I can understand the thought processes of someone like that, a young person freshly admitted into art school, wanting to tackle huge topics like mental illness or religion. I think that you actually need to go through the process of questionable work (I wrote some truly questionable music in first year, even second year) to reach a point where you are more calm as a creative, more settled within yourself, content with your personality and assured that your views on the world are niche but valid. I guess what I'm trying to say is some version of 'be yourself' - being admitted into the VCA as a young artist is thrilling and a huge testament to existing talent. However, artists who check their privilege, and trust that their own personal views are interesting enough to the audience so that drawing upon huge and complex and sensitive topics is perhaps a little unhelpful in a fifteen minute performance piece, will, in my view, go a lot further than artists who fail to see this. 

Eeek. OK. I'm done with that.