Art at the Heart
Our writer-in-residence, Shivani Joshi, shares a peek of Nova Dance company meetings:
“Collaborating with the art drives the company forward.”
Collaborating with the art drives the company forward. Each month, we gather together to activate art within Nova Dance. On zoom, when we find ourselves feeling weary, Nova challenges us to disrupt our routine. We are prompted to change something in our zoom box, and we rush to find a costume change to share with each other. It immediately activates us to find a creative piece in our closet. We come back with a pair of earrings, a beautiful spring scarf, a colorful shirt, and other items we savor but rarely get use out of, waiting for the perfect time. What do we have in our surroundings that makes us happy? We find pleasure in looking through our belongings and it leads us to the art that inspires us. After this, the meeting continues, but it feels soft and light.
When we meet in person, Nova tells us all that we are having a vision meeting. No agenda is offered. In groups, we pick a painting from an eclectic assortment, and describe it as a place, or a state of being. My group has a postcard sized image doused in red paint. We respond with carwash, cinnamon hearts, American psycho. We all chuckle at the activity, but it serves its purpose. We are all interpreting the same abstract image, getting ready to do the same with the company.
After exchanging paintings, we are asked to describe the company now, and five years from now, with what’s on the page. Does Rorschach know about this? Some of us find companionship in the groups of paint splotches, tied together by the collective hope we have for the future of this organization. Some of us find growth in the way the paint wraps itself around the edges of the page.
Together, we map out the tides of the company, envisioning what waves we will make. Nova asks us to draw an organizational chart of the company, and within it, our dream role, one that can only be achieved with years of experience. Nova trusts us before we trust ourselves, finding the latent dreams we have for ourselves, and incorporating it sooner than we could have anticipated.
Deep End Week instigated the plan, she says, describing how she noticed some people focused in on their work and got right into it, versus the people who looked around, took their time, and shifted in how they approach their artwork. In the therapeutic art sessions, she saw the multiplicity and diversity of approaches to the exercises. In one activity led by Rachel Robbins, we use both hands to create bilateral drawings, some of us neatly sticking to our left and right, others messily crossing boundaries and pushing into new spaces.
As we move past Deep End Week, the reflections and insight remain embedded in our everyday activity, driving us towards creative artmaking, led by lessons that we all learned together.
A prompt to consider:
If you were a hungover rockstar, getting ready to go out for breakfast, what would you wear?