Flocculent Spiral

Today I learned that I had been awarded a Connecticut Artist’s Fellowship in Choreography.  A friend suggested that I apply and so I did. The news was wildly unexpected and appreciated.  A blessing and a strong beam of light pointing forward.

I used to depend on on raising money from foundations and corporations along with bookings to support my dance company.  Fundraising was a constant, teetery dance, a bizarre mazurka with changing partners and alliances, all danced on an uneven floor.  It was also a contest of endurance, persistence and grit.  Then the economy tilted even further, shifting away from public funds for smaller, independent artists, moving toward the safer zone of funding big companies and institutions.  I was tired of expending so much energy on the fundraising, and proportionally less time making work, along with the politics, and what could feel like the creation and maintanance of relationships for gain. I am speaking for myself here.  I am sure that is not everyone’s experience. Real friendships did bloom, tender roses in a field of weeds. I still treasure those friendships – all of them rooted in a deep passion for dance and respect for the dancemakers.

So why the galaxy image?  Initially, I thought that this picture was of the Andromeda Galaxy, but it turns out that it is something called a flocculent spiral – a stellar nursery – which “plays a pivotal role in the evolution of galaxies and it is also in the earliest stages of star formation that planetary systems first appear.” I like that because it is about beginnings and what looks like cooperation.

So I am thinking about relationship and inter-dependence and cosmic support and stuff like that.  I am thinking about John Cage, chance and quincunxes (fated events).  And I am feeling how the small events, like receiving this blessing, are part of a bigger phenomenon that holds us all together as we grow, each in our own unique and meandering way.

And I am appreciating.  Thank you universe.