MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
Being Me or You<\/p>\n
Do you ever wonder what it would feel like to be someone
else? Someone more successful than you. Someone smarter or prettier or more\u00a0handsome and stronger. Someone more mysterious, accomplished and alluring than\u00a0you who always seems to get it right when you get it wrong.<\/p>\n
When I sixteen and I first joined the Harkness Ballet\u00a0Company, there were women in the troop who were so talented and experienced, it
felt like it would be impossible for me to ever be as good as they were, no\u00a0matter how hard I trained. During performances, I watched them from the wings\u00a0in awe, admiring their technique, their sense of timing, the beatific looks on\u00a0their faces, their lightness and their mastery. In my estimation, I came up\u00a0short. I was sure that I wasn\u2019t as good or as strong as they were and I never\u00a0would be. When you join a ballet company, you get assigned roles to understudy\u00a0and I compared myself to the women I was understudying. If something happened\u00a0to them, how would I ever fill their shoes? As much as I wanted the opportunity\u00a0to dance their roles, I hoped I would never have to. I was afraid to make\u00a0mistakes, humiliate myself and blow it for the whole company.<\/p>\n
After my first performance at the Hollywood Bow in Los Angeles, we
traveled to Honolulu for a week of performances. I wasn\u2019t scheduled to perform one\u00a0evening. I was in the audience watching a new ballet, when one of the women\u00a0fell. She got up and limped off the stage and the performance went on without\u00a0her. \u201cPoor Lily,\u201d I thought when I suddenly realized that I was her understudy and\u00a0she was in the next ballet. That meant I was in the next ballet.<\/p>\n
I became light headed as I rushed backstage and threw on\u00a0makeup in fifteen minutes that usually took an hour to complete. I put on Lily\u2019s\u00a0costume, a gray unitard, and during the intermission, the entire cast of the\u00a0next ballet quickly rehearsed what we were about to do so I could get my\u00a0bearings. I\u2019ll never forget the feeling in my stomach when I waited for the\u00a0orchestra to begin playing the music. I stepped onto the stage, followed the\u00a0dancers in front of me and I waited for the familiarity to kick in. It never\u00a0really did, it didn’t feel a bit comfortable and I made what I thought was a\u00a0glaring mistake as I turned my head sharply a second before the rest of the\u00a0cast did.<\/p>\n
I got through it and went to the dressing room, certain that\u00a0I had failed. While I was taking off my makeup, feeling like a huge disappointment,\u00a0the artistic director walked into our dressing room, a rare occurrence, and\u00a0said to me, \u201cGood job.\u201d And he left. That was high praise from someone who\u00a0never gave out compliments and I became more accepting of myself and trusting my\u00a0ability to do things on the fly.<\/p>\n
About a year later, I was cast in a role that was choreographed\u00a0by a famous Dutch ballet master. The first ballet ever done to electronic
music, it required us to take our cues from sounds like shattering glass or\u00a0peals of thunder. I loved this man\u2019s work, I loved the innovation, I felt\u00a0secure, and when I danced past the wings on stage left, I spotted a young\u00a0ballerina, my understudy, who had just joined the company a week ago. She was\u00a0watching me with the same look on her face that I had when I was new to the\u00a0company \u2013 admiration and wonder, as if she could never fill my pointe shoes and\u00a0perform like me.<\/p>\n
When we took our curtain calls and left the stage, I passed\u00a0her on my way back to the dressing room and I said, \u201cYou\u2019re good enough. The\u00a0way you dance is particular to you. Just give it some time and hope that I\u00a0don’t fall down and sprain my ankle,\u201d We both laughed.<\/p>\n
Whatever you\u2019re doing in life, you have your own individual expression.\u00a0Comparing yourself to someone else is a waste of time and energy. Trying to\u00a0imitate someone else who is successful and admired is an exercise in futility and it never turns out well because no two people ever do things the same way.\u00a0That\u2019s what makes life interesting and makes you unique. Remember that your\u00a0interpretation is particular to you and it isn’t your job to judge it. When you\u00a0just do it and accept yourself as you are, the more you will find satisfaction and\u00a0feel a sense of accomplishment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MY WEEKLY BLOG Being Me or You Do you ever wonder what it would feel like to be someoneelse? Someone more successful than you. Someone smarter or prettier or more\u00a0handsome and stronger. Someone more mysterious, accomplished and alluring than\u00a0you who always seems to get it right when you get it wrong. When I sixteen and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}