"The Opposite of Depression is Expression"

“The opposite of depression is expression” – listening to Dr. Edith Eger on Brené Brown’s podcast made me want to share something personal.

A few years ago, I found myself stuck in a space where I didn’t know how to express myself anymore.  As someone who has always been an artist (a choreographer and a dancer), expressing myself is part of my identity.  I constantly had ideas I wanted to share through dance, but I hit a space where creating a dance was just another task to accomplish; it was not about expression anymore.  To not have that space of expression, well, then who I am?  Why am I?

I lost myself.  And I fell into a deep depression.

My journey back into creativity started last year with a series of daily photoshoots and thoughts shared on Instagram during Covid lockdown.  At the time, it was what got me up and out of bed.  My wife had just left me after a year of marriage, and this was followed by the isolation of shelter-in-place in the hotspot of New York City.  I felt so incredibly alone and scared; I needed something to support me and I turned to expression.

Looking back, this creative process was the beginning of me re-sharing myself in a more vulnerable light, sharing truths about myself and what I was going through.  I was not worried about how vain I may look by photographing myself each day or how sad my eyes looked in each photograph; I just knew it got me showered and dressed and gave me a space to express my thoughts.  It pulled me through.

I came back to myself. 

In the past few months, I have returned to creating dance, but the pandemic has forced me to do things differently.  And this, this resilience, this requirement for ingenuity, this has brought me even further back to myself.  I haven’t felt this excited about creating and sharing in years, and I am remembering what brought me to dance and expression to begin with.  I want to share with you; I want to connect with you.  I want to speak to you and communicate about our lived experience.  I want us to come closer through art and expression.

I share, here, an image from an event I recently did to create a new work entitled At What Cost.  As we move to “returning to normal” what is the cost?  How many lives have been lost?  Have we learned anything or changed anything about systemic racism?  Why can’t this space, this rift, allow us to open up new ways of existing in the world?  Can we move forward instead of returning to what was?

Our way through is to find our expression and to share it.  I hope you, too, have found your space of expression, in whatever form that takes for you.  If you are feeling stuck, ask me for help.