Art is so powerful and in it every day we learn.
One thing I’ve been able to do during the pandemic is mentorship work. Mentoring a dancer has been a fantastic way of really seeing the evolution in the concentration of energy and how it affects performance. While mentoring this fine young 14 year old in acting and directing has been an intellectual path to self-discovery. I’m not sure if I’ve done it “well” or not…but I share with you his own reflection as we walk towards building art with purpose. ENJOY Truman’s blog. -L.Salgado
I started off this journey not taking it seriously, I viewed it as a simple side activity. Things have changed, and I’m happy for it. It has made me place present. To complete these first few weeks of your time together, Luis made me learn a monologue, a dance, to sing a song. They brought me on a journey when they were placed together. I think he knew that would happen. The first taste of this was getting to do the monologue for the first time a few weeks ago. I felt bad because I had done a bad job at performing it. A week had gone by and Luis had me do all 3 together bringing the excitement from the prior performance into the new one. It was great. I practiced that feeling by myself until I felt ready to bring it to Luis. The excitement of performing it for the first time brought me to doing it better, to being more invested.
To me working to be ready.
I’m really happy I got to prepare this performance well to show Luis what I can do and what I’m made of. And I’m really excited to get even better at this, and the future projects we will be doing.
I feel like a sheet of paper. I just finished getting through my performance and I’m ready to do it again. This experience has allowed me to put into words, things that i feel, with tools. Like a piece of paper is with its tool, the pen. But more than that as well. I want to be the kind of paper that has valuable pens, pens that people work hard for. I want those kinds of tools to bring up my performance level. I’ve already been given some fancy pens and by using them, I got more and more excited for using them again. For working with them. For adding more. I want the person who draws on the paper someone who works hard, I want to be that person.
Learning to create and creating alike are both damaged greatly by this pandemic. I guess I am too. But that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Learning to present your art with the tools you’ve been given is what matters. Pushing yourself to do the art is what matters. I want to be as fast as the ocean. I’m working to be as pure and powerful as the moon. I can’t stop.
You can never stop your art. You need to keep up your work.
If you can do that, you’re ready.
If you can do that, you’re perfect.
Truman Mindt.
