I hope you are all doing well and that you are still healthy and still holding on in this very challenging and locked up corona-world.
In Germany they decided to close all theatres and studios and sport-facilities again (like in March).
I think a lot of those of you who are used to perform or at least are used to rehearse and train every day.
That’s why I wanted to write to you today…to in some way encourage you not to give up! There will be better times soon. Times in which dance and theatre/culture in general will blossom and develop again!
Dance is one of the oldest rituals and necessities of mankind and I believe there will always be an audience for that, no matter what happens. Dance is actually in all of us, like it is in every small child that hears music and automaticly starts to move ON the rythm.
And that’s why dance will always be part of human culture.
There will always be different ways to fund dancing in any kind of form, whether it is by crowd-funding, private investors, scholarships or subventions from a government.
Somehow dance will survive this crisis and so will you, dancers!
These are hard times, but we will go through them and we will learn from them.
For those of you who are just starting their career or who are preparing for it: try to keep listening to this beautiful feeling that you have inside when you are dancing and/or performing on stage. This feeling is YOU and it is something you need like breathing, or drinking water. At least that’s how I felt about it.
I remember that there were so many situations in which I thought of stopping dancing, because the road was very rocky or the road even seemed to be blocked completely, but I still had this need and this urge to dance and to move, inside of me.
So I continued and yes, I had to be patient, persistent and perseverant a lot of times.
I KNEW dance was still a part of me that I couldn’t ignore and that I had to nourish it otherwise a part of me would die.
I kept on going, doing audition, after audition, after audition.
Often not knowing exactly what would come ahead or what would be in a years time, but at the end that didn’t really matter, because I still needed to dance.
So even in these Corona-times it is important not to lose the focus on your dreams or on your inner needs. If it still is dancing/performing, then try to do as much as possible to make that happen.
Thank God for internet, youtube, zoom, skype, etc., because there are so many ways to train/rehearse or even perform for an audience.
And then, all of a sudden there was this very clear moment in which I felt that I had to stop. It was a strong gut feeling too and I can’t explain why I had it or how it developed.
It was just clear that I had to leave the stage soon. I wanted to leave the party at the nicest time, so to say.
If you feel like the time has come to stop dancing too, try to listen to that as well. Try to find out whether that is a rational or an emotional decision, or maybe even a combination of both.
At the end I think it doesn’t matter which kind of a decision it is, as long as it is made consciously and as long as it is well thought of.
In my last post I talked about brainstorming on a possible second career after dancing and about doing this without any boundaries or restrictions.
I did it last week and I came up with some exciting and crazy ideas, for instance:
*having my own dog shelter
*moderator/host on TV (travel magazine, quiz, talk-show)
*member of the jury in dance or casting-shows on TV
*having my own successful cafe
*life coach
*personal trainer for the rich and famous
*a second Dean Schneider (see dean.schneider on instagram!)
*working in an elephant shelter or elephant orphanage
*stuntman
It was fun to do it and to see what kind of wishes came out of my mind. Most of them are not realistic, but that’s not the point.
They might bring me to other ideas that are more realistic.
This is it for now and remember:
This Corona-situation won’t take forever!
Hang on in there and many greetings from Berlin, Germany!
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