Pamela Tzeng - Dancer

It’s not easy for me to say this online because this is a side of me that is scary to share (on the world wide web!)…but I want to be as transparent and committed to this process so here we go.

At this point of the inlayers process I’m feeling emotionally drained.  In the past weeks Taryn has been using several structured improvisations to develop material for the work and the relationships between the dancers.  As we’ve been researching and working to ‘drop into’ our states of consumption more quickly… an unsettling trend in my behavior has been happening when we really get into the meat of our improvs– that of becoming so emotionally frustrated that I begin to cry.

To share with you, a negative result of my personal story of being consumed is that over the course of the past few months I’ve unconsciously build an emotional wall in which I’m discovering involves much more deeply rooted anger and sadness than I thought. Reflecting more into the why?  I’m starting to think it all stems from frustration that has build over time from thinking that I always need to be working towards something – working towards being better, never really allowing myself to take a moment to relax, enjoy my accomplishments nor acknowledge my emotional state. I’ve become fearful of asking for help and what I need from some of my most intimate relationships.   This invisible wall that sometimes surrounds me has subtlety transferred into my improvisations and is really challenging me as an interpreter as we dig deeper into this piece.  There is a large part of me that wants to be in denial of this and so badly wants to quickly get past it, because I don’t want to be ‘struggling’.  But thinking back to a intimate cast discussion a few rehearsals back… ‘maybe this is exactly where I need to be’… maybe I just need to embrace that where I’m at isn’t ideal but this struggle/block needs to take its course and in the end will only make me stronger. Time to yet again, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.