Five years of professional training, tours, all kinds of performances, various collaborations, far too many ballet classes and hours spent attempting to stare beatifically into my palm (sheltered by relaxed fingers), numerous freak-outs, break-downs, crises in confidence, crises in company and drunken benders leading to the pungent stench of alcoholic sweat and utter incompetence in class: In short, a lot of fucking hard work, that would lead anyone to logically conclude that I have the aspiration to become a pretty damn fine dancer. And get paid for it, thank you very much.

Yet at this point I find myself telling people that I have retired.

I have retired from aspiring to perform anywhere other than alone in dark studios, in a club or in my house (or maybe even in yours).

I don’t go to auditions or to class and I wonder why I am not pursuing the career I am qualified to pursue, the one that I have spent years pursuing already, the pursuit of which has taken over my life. I think it’s because dancing for somebody else feels HUGE. Even the phrasing 'dancing for somebody else' is weird – my dance is for you, I dance when you say and as you want. For money. Maybe I am just full of romantic illusions about dancing for love of the thing, but the financial exchange that marks the dancing as a Profession complicates the deal:

Does the choreographer then have ownership over my body? What is ownership of my body? Do I own my own(?) body? Can bodies be owned? Is my body ‘Me’? If someone pays for my body then do they then have power over my entire self? What is my ‘self’? Where is my self when my body is busy being owned and earning money doing some other person’s dance? Is this ‘selling your soul’? Is my body then my soul? Once sold can I get it back? Is it possible to rent your body (and soul along with it) without them being changed by the transaction once the loan period is over? Is it okay to be changed? If I (body and soul) am continually being rented, am I continually being changed through use? I would be changed through use anyway so does it matter that I rent my self out? Does the choreographer care about my self? Does this make a difference? Does any owner care about their goods in any way other than their ownership (dominion, status) of them? Am I a ‘good’? EXISTENTIAL CRISIS!

Well, dance is the existential art form after all and the thing I love about dancing is the awareness and power of engagement I have with my body whilst dancing. The dancing body is participant in and subject to various dialogues and discourses as well as experiencing uniquely physical phenomena. Dancing for me is a way of Being, an active dialogue with a lot of stuff. The performing body is like politics in action. Can I still say all the things I’d like to add to that dialogue, if my dance has been bought by someone else? Does that mean my dance belongs to someone else? Can my dance belong to someone else or does it still belong to me? If someone else has bought my dancing body and controls my dance, does this change me? What then is my ethical standpoint?

Bring on the crisis and the questioning, I have decided! A crisis is only a crisis if it leads to stasis and according to Elizabeth Grosz endless negotiation is the way to revolution. So I’ll keep asking questions and waiting for my revolution – one can always come out of retirement or maybe I’ll call myself an occupational dancer rather than a professional one. Or something.