Writing

Building a Room

Excerpt:

Preface: Dreaming is Free

This essay has gone through more revisions than I care to count. I’ve written and re-written it while staring down the limits of time, clarity, and form. I’ve felt discouraged, frustrated, moved, re-committed, and—yes—hopeful.

Because here’s the truth: I love the institutions, the LLCs1, the nonprofits, the artist-run spaces that make this work possible. I’ve been held by them, employed by them, mentored and inspired by the people working within them. It’s my deep respect for these places—and the people keeping them alive—that motivates this writing.

This is not critique for critique’s sake. This is care, shaped into language.

The last thing we need right now is cynicism aimed at the very people and organizations fighting to stay alive. At a time when the funding landscape is shifting rapidly and dangerously, I think of the recent poston Instagram by New Dialect, a dance organization in Nashville led by Banning Bouldin, announcing the cancellation of their summer programming. They wrote:

“New Dialect, as with so many artists and arts organizations in our country, rely on grant support from city, state and federal agencies to pay artists a living wage and provide our communities with inspiring opportunities to learn and engage with the arts. If you care about the arts and want to see those opportunities to support artists expand, please write and call your representatives. Your voice matters.”

It breaks my heart. And I know they are not alone.

As I’ve been working on this essay, I’ve also been in dialogue with friends and colleagues—one of whom, Emma Judkins, generously allowed me to quote her directly in the piece. During one of our exchanges, as I was knee-deep in edits, she sent this line that touched me deeply and felt like the right way to begin:

“I find my nihilist brain kicking in often when dreaming into the potentialities of a funded, supportive, dance-positive future—but it’s so good to stretch the brain toward that. Dreaming is free, after all.”

Dreaming is free. And so (relatively speaking) is my time, as I write this from a pause in my teaching life—using this platform to share thoughts, to name what I see, and to keep building a conversation with those who are also dreaming.

This is where the essay begins.

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