Beauty lies in the gaps. In the imperfections.
Because the imperfections are what makes life interesting.
The way the trapeze spins slightly faster than you were anticipating, so your movement quality changes almost imperceptibly and surprisingly, and your face makes a different shape to the one you were planning — but it works.
The way the light shines on your body and shows the audience something in your movement that you weren’t quite expecting and couldn’t predict.
The feeling of being fully present and taking what you’ve worked so hard on for the past months and weaving it around the stage, the lighting, the audience, your nerves, and the energy in the room, to create something that’s never been seen before and never will be again.
Something you couldn’t possibly have predicted.
Something glorious in its imperfection.
Something that cannot be captured or contained.
Photo by the extra-talented Hattee |
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in years of competing and performing, it’s that what you create on the night is the not the same thing you spend months preparing and building.
It can’t be.
It will never be perfect because every time we do it, it’s different.
So, instead of perfection, I aim for connection.
What do I want to share with the people who are giving me their time and attention?
What do I want them to take from this?
What is my gift, to them and myself?
What could you create — what could you write — if you let go of perfection and instead tried for connection?
Every reading of your words is different; unique. It’ll land here for one person; there for another. With this feeling on one day, and with that on a more difficult or more sunny day.
What you create with your words isn’t static, it changes with the season, the time of day, the energy in the room, so there is no point in aiming for perfection.
Feck perfuction.
We win when we make people feel something real.
p.s. On Sunday, I competed in Aerial Art 2024 in the Higher Advanced category, and placed third. I’m really proud because the piece I made is the best thing I’ve ever done. So far. I loved every second of it.
If you’d like to see it, you can do so here.
p.p.s. I stole this subject line from my buddy Marc Thomas, who stole it from James Victore.
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