#artistic associate

KATIE TELLS US ABOUT HERSELF (and Picasso)!

I was at the MET one afternoon and wandered into the room with Picasso’s work. I walked through and tried to hit his paintings in the order that they were painted. I had been feeling like I would never be a great artist. That great artists were born great. However, the work in front of me showed me without a doubt that time and study change the artist and bring out what is brilliant about them as individuals. The journey is part of the astounding beauty. It is much easier to see in fine art than in performing art. Everything you make plays a part in the next thing you make. It’s a constant cycle of growth and rebirth.

I know that there are areas of performance in which I am an expert. I forget that, or perhaps have never been given the permission to be an authority on the things I know. I am at a point where I think I would find great value in sharing that knowledge. I am not an expert at clown, devising my own work, or teaching others the things I know. These are among the many things that I admire about Cat and see great potential for growth. It’s like my brain gets stuck in its little box and Cat is so great at getting you out of your head and bringing creativity into action. I really admire that so much and would love to be able to learn to shift my perspective and think about process and making in a way that is unconventional.

I have always been a rule follower. What I discovered in being in the PLAB is that as an artist you make up the rules. That is when you truly start making things that you can call your own. You make up the rules and you engage them with your imagination and you begin to tell stories inside of those rules. Everything is a win. Everything teaches you something even if not everything becomes part of your final story.

CATHERINE ASKS KATIE SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS!

What are your special and/or secret talents?

Playing the clarinet, handstands, opening beer bottles with my teeth, walking with a peg leg, tying cherry stems in knots with my tongue, making up voices and internal monologues for animals and pets.

What is your favorite...

Snack? White Cheddar Popcorn.

Meal? Thick cut Pork Chops cooked on the grill.

Book? Crime and Punishment.

Pizza Topping? Extra sauce.

Nap location? On the sofa with Ollie the poodle.

Author? Tennessee Williams.

Artist? Aurelija Kairyte-Smolianskiene.

Line of text? “Sometimes-there’s God-so quickly.”

Feeling? Floating in the ocean looking up at the sky (that’s a feeling, right?).

Sensation? That mix of fear and exhilaration that happens only on a roller coaster.

What is your spirit animal? A fox. It’s a dog that sometimes acts like a cat.

If you were a shoe, what kind of shoe would you be? A gold Birkenstock sandal. A new twist on an old classic.

How do you define…

Satisfaction? Feeling full with leftovers.

Peace? Standing on the cliffs staring at the volcano in Santorini, Greece.

Freedom? Loving your work.

Fear? Waiting tables for eternity.

Spirit? That indescribable thing that is what we are before body or mind.

Joy? Listening to music I love, being in rehearsal and unlocking a play.

CATHERINE TELLS A STORY ABOUT KATIE!

I had the privilege of first meeting Katie nearly a decade ago when she was in graduate school for acting. I was apprenticing under Christopher Bayes and she was a student in his Clown class. While many students in her cohort were innately facile at Clown, she was the only one I approached after the semester finished, offering my card. I think I said something like If you ever want to make performance work like this when you get out, I’d be honored if you looked me up, thinking to myself, There is no way she will ever want to make work with a tiny, Brooklyn-based Clown/Physical Theater company (I was co-Artistic Director of one at the time), but it’s worth a shot.

Katie’s class contained many singular performers, but she contained such a wonderful balance of pathos, vulnerability and ridiculousness. Strong and sad and smart and so very open. One the older students in her class, she was keenly grounded in herself even as she willingly thrust herself into new territory, risking disaster at every turn. In Clownspeak, she was a mess, and the exact right kind: funny and tragic. As you can see by her favorite meal and book, she doesn’t mess around with life.

As a dedicated member of the inaugural PLAB, I observed Katie continuing to take the biggest bites possible out of every creative conundrum thrown her way. She easily shares space with others onstage and off, offering support through her talents, intellect and generosity.  I could watch her do anything: eat paper, sit on a chair and wait for someone to arrive, sing about her cats, her underwear and the heartache of uncertainty. I’m clear it is a privilege for me to be in a room with her, and to have her join IFCAP as an Artistic Associate means I get to learn from her even more.

When Catherine and I came together for IFCAP nearly a year ago, I had established a comfortable role for myself as her clowning student and sometimes collaborator. I had secretly prepared myself to take on more responsibility since taking my first Clown class with Catherine over four years ago. I remember sitting in our acting lab at Drew University and watching Cat as much as I was watching my colleagues. I wanted desperately to know how she knew just what to say.

When IFCAP was born and I was finally able to study under Catherine as her apprentice, I was struck by an overwhelming desire to be completely ready. I see now that I wanted to forego the training and just become a protege. I was afraid of the training, of the responsibility of holding space for that many people. It's mentally and emotionally daunting to feel somehow in control of other people's experiences, and I was terrified of the failure that inevitably comes with training for something as important as leading a room. What if I got asked to lead warmups and I didn't lead it right and someone got hurt? What if someone asked me my opinion and I gave the wrong one? What if I just don't have the answers? To compensate for this terror, I leaned into my concrete tasks - unlocking the door, collecting RSVPs, answering transit questions. Making things into a list felt like a way to control my experience and qualify it. Look Cat! I checked off all the tasks on the list! I am the best Artistic Associate! And it’s true, being an Artistic Associate of a new enterprise requires a great deal of planning, organizing, emailing, and being a support system for the facilitator. And to the participants of any IFCAP endeavor, I am as much a representative of IFCAP as Catherine.

While lists are helpful and often delightful and make sure you don’t forget anything at the supermarket, they can get in the way of the real task, which is to study, which is often a quiet - but never passive - task. I am more exhausted leaving PLABORATORY sessions than I ever have been leaving a class in which I was a traditional student. My IFCAP notebook is filled with questions. Sometimes I can answer them myself. Sometimes the answer makes itself apparent to me. Sometimes I whisper to Catherine and she whispers it back to me.

It feels incredibly daunting to reflect on the past six months and what I’ve learned. I’ve noticed a marked difference in how I interact with the PLAB members, how I interact with their inquiries, how my inquiry and observation have changed.

We are halfway through the PLAB’s first year. The Dana of February is not the Dana of July.

February Dana said: “How do you think of these composition assignments?” “I can’t forget the warmup order.” “I need to remember all the RSVPs.” “How would I do this composition as a participant?” “What makes something magical?”

July Dana says: “What qualities in the group are being explored in this exercise?” “Why are those valuable?” “Why are they valuable today more than the other days?” “How do we create a space where people feel safe but not coddled?” “How can I, as a leader, facilitate the experience of these participants so that they find new ways to explore what they can do?” “If I was asking this group to do this exercise, how would I phrase it in my special Dana way?” “How can I be the world’s best audience member and hold space for each PLAB member to try and fail and succeed, just by being there for them?”

February Dana was thinking like a participant. July Dana is thinking like a leader-in-training. As we continue to move forward in IFCAP’s inaugural year, I can only hope for more growth in this direction. I have seen my experience of these rooms change. I have become less afraid of failing, of not knowing the answer, of not being ready to lead. I’m a Capricorn. I want to be ready to lead. But there is a freedom in the uncertainty. In knowing that by persisting in inquiry, I will grow and be ready someday.

This quote is scribbled somewhere in the middle of my little purple IFCAP notebook:

“Just because that’s where you started doesn’t mean that's where you’re stuck.”