Conception is not direction.
Cooperation is not collaboration.
Enthusiasm is not care.
Recklessness is not innovation.
Being an artist is not an identity.
It’s a behavior.
Keep going.
if you’ll allow me
attending as you are
to feeling
to feel
all of this
rotten
messy
dis-ease
and fear
please
allow me
to move it
which is to say
to feel it
which is to say
know it
5.8.2026
I’ll be teaching some modern classes @thejonescenter this summer!
There’s an intro class on Mondays and an intermediate class on Wednesdays.
Come move with me 🌼
In the photo:
@trishaontherocks5678@montomdotcom
please continue,
it matters.
twisting around an idea
living in relationship
folding and unfolding
pausing to consider
riding the wave
surprising yourself
falling
following
breathing
please continue.
whatever dancing is,
we need it
to keep going
…aaaaand another thing! 💫
Competition and concert dance are not different “styles”. They are different labor models.
Competition dance is a pay-to-participate model that puts most of the financial risk on dancers and their families. This model creates many paid roles—studio owners, competition organizers, judges, choreographers—but very few paid performance jobs for dancers themselves. In competition dance, income concentrates around infrastructure and branding. Success in this system does not necessarily translate to employment as a dancer.
Concert dance is a labor-based economy where dancers who have demonstrable skill are paid for their work (not to say exploitation doesn’t exist here, but the idea is that people are employed or contracted for their skills) and the financial risk is placed more on institutions and companies than individuals. In this system, dancers are hired just like any other job, either as employees or contracted contributors. Depending on the contract, they may be paid to take class, to rehearse and to perform. They may receive benefits such as health insurance, workers’ compensation, or retirement contributions. This model recognizes dancers as laborers and doesn’t not expect them to work in exchange for prestige or status alone.
As an educator in the dance field, I think it’s important to make this distinction. Love you mean it.
Keep dancing y’all! ⭐️
Competition dance commercializes and white-washes dances from concert dance and social dance (specifically dances that originate in Black and Brown communities). Competition dances are caricatures of non-competitive dance forms. They are exaggerated, distorted and simplified for commercial purposes.
While thousands of people gather at competitions to celebrate and enjoy the work of young, able-bodied dancers, these audiences are generally populated by other dancers, former dancers, and producers of competition dance, creating a siloed experience that does more to buoy the buy-in for university athletics departments than it does contribute to a thriving culture that might include dance or support an artistic practice for dance artists. The general public does not attend competitions. The public audience for competition dance is comprised of sport fans, consuming dance passively as a divertissement from the game. Neither the audience nor the performers are incentivized to consider the dance beyond how entertaining it is (using a sort of watered down version of a judge’s score sheet). They care not for the history, the culture, or the semiotics of these dances, because, to acknowledge the history of these dances would necessarily require one to dissect the mechanism of colonialism, patriarchy and white narcissism that frame them. Capital A-Art invites both artist and public to make and to consider meaning. Competition dance requires dancers and audiences to divert attention from meaning and focus solely on feelings. It is for entertainment. Like dangling keys in front of a baby.
This is not to say there is not real impact, no values imbedded in competition dance. Their meaning is simply not to be actively considered by performers or audiences. As in other modern expressions of capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy, it is covert. In fact, competition dance perfectly mirrors the values of capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy. These dances and their containers work to reinforce local, regional, and national identities around branding and productivity. They underline values of goodness related to measurements of wealth, health and beauty.
Love you mean it
A message to dancers:
No shame, babes. We all had to learn. My mentors didn’t guide me to navigate or negotiate contracts or to value my labor as such. Instead, I was trained to see any project as an opportunity and to perform gratitude regardless of the toll it took on my wallet and my body. In any work environment, we are discouraged from speaking honestly about work conditions and about money. This is one way that predatory companies and directors keep people from truly thriving. We keep each other safe by being transparent and refusing exploitation.
Predatory behavior should not be met with willing bodies. When we provide labor without fair compensation, we perpetuate these toxic labor practices and undermine the value of dancers who know better. Don’t cross the picket line.
Here’s a tip: when deciding whether to spend your money/effort/resources on a dance project, research the director/choreographer and institution, look at their lineage, their collaborators and their funding. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask what the budget is. Ask people who have worked with them what their experience was. You are allowed to say no.
A formula that has worked for me is Project, People, Pay. If I’m not satisfied with 2/3 of those P’s, I won’t take the job. Period.
Love you mean it.
Keep the flame alive.
I had a dream we put on a Chekhov play. The set was both extravagantly 4-dimensional and devastatingly DIY. Critics are out.
First post of me dancing in the new house.
Song by Ancient Infinity Orchestra
