Name: Erin Flynn Occupation: Dancer, Choreographer, Improvisor, Teacher Preoccupations: state of things, nature, movement, music, bodies, enjoying life.........

Projects:

1. Improve technically: learn to release, gain strength, learn faster, open up, learn to stand, and breathe - how can I be a professional? (take Jeremy Nelson's class)
2. Support self somehow - find 2nd job
3. Realise Multimedia project(thank you Canada Council)
4. Get improvisation group(Instant) ready for Square Zero festival in Ottawa etc.

First entry at an inspiring time of year - it's amazing how the weather can shift your perspective. I am so relieved to see green things growing. Finally a break in the dirty palette of concrete and garbage of the end of winter and a week to get myself organised.

Trying to write something without thinking that other people are going to read it. What is making up present reality, recent past and future prospects? - Training, ideas for living from Ben Okri's In Arcadia, work with A. Harwood, meeting with the gals from Instant, job interviews and sitting in the sun. I guess generally all the elements of one's day fuse together to create a kind of lesson.

What have I been learning lately? To listen, to pay attention, to still the chatter in my mind. Can't believe how many years I have danced with a running commentary in my head. Dance can be a narrow reality or a deeply engaging one (guess we create our own reality folks!). It seems to draw people who crave intensity as my boss was noticing last week. Strange discipline because it is impossible to fully know what it is you are projecting. There is an unhealthy draw to perfectionism. I think most of us walk a fine line between being artists and prize ponies.

Right now is the season of auditions and I am surrounded by a lot of semi or unemployed dancers vying for jobs, hoping to be chosen. I know it all too well and yet I really don't want to feel this way anymore. I am on this path because I have something to say and I don't want my artistry and self confidence to be reliant on whether or not someone picks me out of a crowd. The times when things have worked out well have been the result of inner faith and not needing external approval. Easier said than done.

Just completed two weeks of improvisational research. Have been enjoying the process of making choices and recognising habits. Playing and creating with a group of talented and diverse individuals. Learning to communicate without words, to trust impulses and realise them in a way that resonates. How to embody clarity and simplicity while being spontaneous? I am thinking it has to do with committing bravely to an action when you have a strong impulse and listening when you don't. A jazz musician I was working with said he always focuses on the other players, doesn't try hear himself. But don't you have to have a sense of what you are adding?

To be continued......