There have been reports of collectively weirder dreaming during this period of enforced isolation. My own dreams lately have not been any stranger than usual but definitely more vivid. I actually look forward to them, even the stressful ones:
For this week’s letter, in honor of dreaming and sleep (which I could have used more of this week), I thought I’d share a little bit of my subconscious life. A few years ago on Twitter, I began using the hashtag #dancedreams to keep track of my frequent dreams about dance, at least the ones that could be summed up in 280 characters or less. It started as kind of a silly thing (and it still is), but now that I’ve been doing it for a while, I can see more clearly how the people and places and situations that fill (or filled) so many of my waking hours bleed into sleep. I can also identify recurring preoccupations: Riverdance, reviewing conundrums, forgetting the choreography.
I always enjoy when people respond with their own #dancedreams. Lately my friend Anne has been grappling with this one. What does it mean??
The Nutcracker makes frequent #dancedream appearances…
…along with memory lapses and other obstructions:
Sometimes when I see a dance dream floating out there on the timeline, I hashtag it to add to the record of our collective dancing subconscious:
I compiled some of my own #dancedreams on Instagram a couple of weeks ago, and they were warmly received, so I decided to put together an extended selection. This chronological list begins on Sept. 23, 2016, and ends just the other day on May 5, 2020.
Feel free to send me your own dance dreams, and I might include a few in the next letter. Now without further ado:
#dancedreams
Dreamed I met and had a falling out with the extended family of a founding member of Judson Dance Theater
Dreamed I had to review a show starring my 10-year-old cousin, directed by my aunt
dreamed I saw Rihanna dance and she had great feet
dreamed I saw a dance piece starring someone I only know on twitter
dreamed I had to create an "evening-length" dance work by Thursday. horrifying.
dreamed I saw a group of small children, including a baby, dancing Merce Cunningham technique
dreamed I was explaining my theory (invented in dream) that cultural appropriation in dance stems from same in music
Dreamed that I collaborated with Barack Obama on a lecture, for kids, about Misty Copeland
dreamed I was about to audition for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
dreamed i had to review dances i invented in my dream
dreamed i was in rehearsal and found out the show was opening in like an hour and still didn't know the steps
dreamed I was taking ballet class
dreamed I was rehearsing Trio A and a teacher (male) tried to give me hands-on corrections and I screamed “don’t touch me!!”
dreamed my car was breaking down and I had to ask the curator of a well-known experimental performance venue for help
Dreamed I was in class with a choreographer who (a) would never “teach class” IRL and (b) disappeared when it was time to start the music. And as usual I couldn’t remember the combo
dreamed that a performance artist I danced for in 2011 hired me again and before our show cast a benevolent Halloween spell
Dreamed I was working on a story about artists and their dogs and had no idea why
Dreamed I watched an entire new work by Sarah Michelson. It had a large cast and played with the illusion of the room turning upside down
In the same dream a friend discovered, at a flea market, a designer t-shirt that said “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Riverdance”
dreamed i showed up to rehearse at a well-known experimental dance venue wearing a rhinestone-studded leotard
dreamed I was back on tour w Riverdance and quit in protest of being asked to hang upside down from the ceiling
dreamed I had an altercation with Michael Flatley
dreamed that a pole dancer asked me to be her personal assistant
dreamed that a choreographer I've written about insisted I watch a dazzling sunset
dreamed i agreed to dance in two shows in one night, had to choose which to give up, also (obv) couldn't remember the steps for either
Dreamed about having bad posture
dreamed that one of my colleagues was considering going on leave to pursue a puppetry project
dreamed that a choreographer who was upset by my review retaliated in the form of a new performance
dreamed about my future second career as a Feldenkrais teacher
dreamed that a respected dance scholar / choreographer emphatically explained to me that life is finite, when it’s over it’s over
dreamed that a performance at NYCB ended with asking the audience to leave the theater and walk together in the street
dreamed I invited Bernie to be a virtual guest speaker in my Dance in New York City class
Had my first TikTok dream
Dreamed I was supposed to dance in Riverdance but was running late to the theater and then realized I’d left my makeup at home and had to run up a hill to go back and get it and then someone offered me a ride but just drove around in a circle and we never got there
dreamed I was coaching a young group of Irish dancers and made them add roundoffs into their routine to give it “more bounce”
That last one was definitely inspired by watching this viral video of Irish dancer Morgan Bullock playing around in hard shoes to the new “Savage” remix. A lot of people sent me this knowing how much I’d appreciate it. Turns out that Morgan —who has now been endorsed by by Beyoncé’s mom — studied at a school founded by my former Riverdance colleague Jessie Baffa. (Let’s hear it for the Baffa Academy.) I’m not surprised this conjured up yet another (Irish) dance dream:
