The problem is that I don’t think I’m awesome. Or rather, that I have a lot of self-esteem issues.
Hello universe and welcome to my blog, Why I Am Awesome. The hyperbole and immodesty of the title, as well as the intent, is entirely out of character for me, and therefore hopefully a good form of therapy.
In a nutshell, I actually am pretty awesome. I’ve lived an interesting life so far, had some great experiences, have some good friends, and a lot of good shit goin’ down. But I seem perpetually unhappy and unable to acknowledge all of this. The pharmaceutical reps in the audience might be petitioning me for antidepressants, but that’s not entirely the issue.
So I’m writing this blog as a way to remind myself that hey, I AM awesome. I am worthwhile. I’m someone cool, and smart and funny and deserving of love. And hey, if the internet isn’t the place for masturbatory non-fiction, then what is?
I’m sure I’ll fill in more of the blanks as I go along, but for now let’s get down to business. Why I’m awesome.
Reason #1.
For the first reason I want to do a really good one. A shocker, one that makes you sit up and take notice. Something that says, “holy shit, this dude is something else! And he enjoys casual swearing! I sure as fuck do.
So it can’t just be about how I know a lot about beer (kinda) or how I know a lot about character actors (I do: www.also-starring.com). And while it’s tempting to tie it to some pop-culture ephemera or siting or cool place I’ve been to, I want something really universal here. Something that everyone can relate to, a fact that if people find it out about me, they are awestruck by my awesomeness.
I have performed onstage with Mikhail Baryshnikov.
I’m not making it up - absolutely true. A big part of my life is that for almost eight years I worked at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM.org) in New York. I’m sure a lot more will come up about it here, some of it good and some of it bad. But they were incredibly formative years and ones that I have great memories from.
The greatest is when we had a performance of Baryshnikov’s White Oak Project. The piece was called PastForward, and it was a tribute to choreographers from the 1960s and 70s of the Judson Church Movement in Lower Manhattan. Great stuff like Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs, giants. Fantastic stuff.
One of the key elements of the show was that anyone can be a dancer or “perform.” To that end the company and BAM recruited about two dozen people from the neighborhood to be in the show at certain points. The movements constituted walking slowly across the stage in time to music, creating piles of people in the lobby, or disassembling a set on stage.
I wasn’t one of these people but after seeing the show and loving it, I asked Artist Services if I could be a backup. And sure enough, one night they needed me (or took pity on me, either way).
I had a brief rehearsal, mainly to make sure that I could walk across the stage in time to the music. This was a beautiful piece performed by the group at large, but without any of the professional dancers. The other pieces I was involved in was the taking apart of an on-stage “sculpture” created by Baryshnikov. We would be on stage with him.
I had befriended a few of the company members already (well, “had a desperate crush on,” would be a better phrase), so they made sure I was in the right place at the right time. I had seen the show twice before, so I had an idea of what to expect.
I huddled in the wings and when my cue came for the first piece, I trotted out on stage in perfect time. The glare of the sidelights obscured my vision of the house, but we were told to loom straight ahead anyway, and not at the theater. I may have rushed it a little in the middle, but I think I did a good job as a non-professional (which was the whole point).
For the second piece we were to perform in (the fifth or sixth piece of the night), the lights come up on Mikhail Baryshnikov alone on the stage. If you haven’t seen him in person, let me tell you that the man is indescribable. Some people gain fame or notoriety through good luck, timing, or simply representing the zeitgeist. Others, like say Aretha Franklin, are so infinitely, cosmically talented that it’s simply fate that they would become well known for their art.
Put “Misha” (as we didn’t call him to his face) down in the latter category. The man doesn’t jump in the air, he simply rises up like he’s on a hoverboard and floats back down again. Breathtaking stuff.
Anyway, in this piece he’s getting away from his ballet roots and doing a conceptual number where he builds a sculpture out of found objects backstage (ladders, chairs, trashcans, etc). He builds the sculpture and then we all come on and take it down in one quick movement.
This was more exciting, because even though he wasn’t doing any classical dance, I was still onstage with the man! I ran on with everyone else, grabbed half-heartedly at a ladder that two other guys already had a grip on, and ran off stage.
Boom. I had performed onstage with Mikhail Baryshnikov.
A cheat, you say? Okay, well there’s more to the story.
Since the Judson Church movement emerged out of the counter-culture of the 1960s, pop music from the 60s was playing in the lobby before the performance and during parts of the show itself. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Yvonne Rainer’s Chair/Pillow, which approximates Phil Spector’s wall of sound in Ike & Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High” by using only pillows and folding chairs.
At the end of the show, after a spectacular finish in a piece by Lucinda Childs, the dancers come out for their curtain calls. This was all timed to “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide (Except For Me and My Monkey)” by the Beatles.
First we non-professionals came out. We formed two lines, took a quick bow and retreated back. My god, the view from that stage was breathtaking. The house lights were up which meant that we could see some of the theater and audience, two thousand people at a sold-out show, stacked in three massive tiers in a grand Art Nouveau building, clapping away.
As we retreated back, the company came out and the audience rose to its feet. The company, along with its leader, the greatest living dancer in the western world, took a bow. Then we all formed three rows and took another bow. The applause was deafening.
But the song was only about half over. And then something happened that was choreographed. It was planned out, and I know this because I saw the show twice and was in it once. But it’s all theater anyway and sometimes the illusion of spontaneity is enough. Hell, maybe it’s not even an illusion, but i made me believe. In art, in music, in dance, in the fact that right then, at that moment, things mattered, my life mattered, and that art will always matter.
Baryshnikov stepped to the front of the dancers and looked out at the crowd. He looked back at us, smiled, and just as the music kicked into the next verse, he began doing a Chuck Berry duck walk.
Instantly the rest of the dancers and non-professionals all start dancing, like at a party, a beach movie, the end of Caddyshack, or any other fictional place where people start dancing and you want to believe that things like that happen but you’re sure that they don’t.
The first time I saw this I practically levitated out of my chair with happiness. To be a part of it, to spring this surprise on an audience, to literally be dancing on stage with Mikhail Baryshnikov while he acts first like Chuck Berry and then a go-go dancer, it was too much excitement for me. I sprained a muscle almost immediately but didn’t let that stop me. I danced and shimmied all over that stage while the Beatles played us out. Goddamn Baryshnikov. I have actually danced on stage with him.
It was a defining moment for me, and one that showed me that my life had validity. That’s been a hard feeling to hold onto, and it’s why I want to record and share moments like this. It’s why I need to remind myself of who I am and where I came from. It’s why I’m awesome.
