Energetic Deceit

Katelyn Farstad

For this issue, I was asked to attend the Zenon open house, attend as many classes as I could, and report back about my experience. In short, my day felt like a mix of a fast day at the DMV, Jury Duty, and group therapy. Absolutely incredible. A formative day in my life. I thought I would make it the whole day but could only handle three consecutive hours of trying out different dance classes. The first class of the day was tap.  I showed up to Tap Class like it was a bowling alley- expecting there to be shoe rental: because why do I already own tap shoes if I’m merely interested? (Actually, I did own tap shoes but I borrowed them to a member of Dancebums that shall remain unnamed, because hey I think they needed them at the time and I was not using them that much and its been too long to ask for them back). I tried to join in with just my sneakers, but the lack of audio coming from my feet made me feel embarrassed like a horn that didn’t work. I also thought the point was to hear the sounds your feet made, but it was all choreographed along to some very intense hip hop techno hybrid music, which was just very confusing to me. The next class of the day was Jazz. Jazz was goofy as hell! And because of this, I connected to it more readily, because the movements were genuinely hilarious and it doesn’t seem like people have felt very “jazzy” since the 20’s, so seeing a myriad of humans do these dance moves was very cool because it was so very unfashionable and kind of like watching a very impressive remedial magic show. I love remedial magic.

The next class I took was Modern. Modern was probably my favorite because here we can “become a wave” or “crack like an egg”.  I also love the confidence that wells up in me every time I am expected to count, aloud, from five to eight. Let me also say now as I’ve shared my most confident aspect of the day is that I have no idea how to use my body in a formal dance setting. I found myself taking a break during Modern class when my knee was bothering me to talk on the phone, now realizing that I was pacing and dancing all over the blobby while trying to re-direct my awkward energy I couldn’t summon to just dance. I rode the elevator one too many times because I loved the way my heart goes into my throat when the elevator starts out, I love how people nervously move around to make room for one another, and I love foreknowing that I am in a moving cube inside a building.  I was dancing by avoiding dancing.  When I got back to the modern class, all the sudden, like a lightning bolt from the sky the instructor was all “Ok line up in fours!” and I was like “WTF are you actually kidding me!” That moment was like forcing everyone in the room to do stand up. Some people would like do the phrase like they were on America’s Got Talent, and then people like me, and some others, were like ok umm I’m in the middle of the room now ok I’ve nearly blown the entire phrase ok check out THIS SHIT and do like one little sad flurry of spastic expression. And people would encourage each other or lovingly laugh at each other. The point is that you HAVE to go out there.  Denial is no longer an option when you have to move your body in front of a group of strangers in a line of four, and no longer can hide in the amorphous blob that is the group class. After three (almost) solid hours of dancing I was totally beat. I was like almost destroyed because I am usually such a sedentary person; running barefoot on coals on the beach of my mind and calling it a workout.

I want to segue now, to talking about how I’ve been a person who has felt extremely trapped in feeling: always injured, always sore, always concussed, always upset, always awful. I have been treatment resistant for years, and struggled with severe anxiety and depression for my whole life. I have years of unresolved concussions and PTSD. When thinking of the prompt for this issue of “trying” I felt very compelled. Because I cant even stress enough how I have not even been in a place to try if I wanted to for the past nine years, and possibly thirty. After my most recent car accident and subsequent concussion five months ago I was fortunate enough to enter into a Traumatic Brain Injury outpatient clinic at HCMC and I can’t tell you how life changing its been. It has put me in a place so that I can even try. I have gone my entire life feeling incurably horrible, and after entering this program, realized what I was experiencing was mostly somatic, not psychological, rooted in subtle but critical vision problems, constant fight or flight reactions, and that all of my symptoms were from not being able to heal from a succession of eight total concussions in my life. I can’t tell you how great it feels to figure out what is wrong with you after thirty years of banging your head against every other possible wall, including being misdiagnosed with panic disorder and put on Klonopin, which made everything significantly worse.  All of which could have been avoided had I known more abut what repeated concussions do to your ability to function in a very basic way. It is like having newborn baby syndrome, your defenses are just gone, and nervous system is shot, so everything feels impossible.

So now five months into this TBI outpatient program, I realized I felt ready to try something. And when I was dancing, and trying to dance, I felt victorious because my life goal has been to be in a place to feel good enough to just try.  And to be in a room with a bunch of people I don’t know and for the activity to be minimally lingual, obviously, but just to be exchanging glances, or quips, little short comments reminded me about studying abroad and I felt pressured to like be funny at every single moment to avoid the reality that I base line could not communicate with anyone around me.

The whole day at Zenon I was like, damn, I am so awkward in my body, I actually had no idea. It was like realizing I thought I was funnier than I really am. I feel like I finally realized just how awkward I feel through doing this day of open house classes at Zenon and for that I am eternally grateful. The people that were so skilled and so confident and comfortable in their bodies and moving in them, they have metaphorically speaking, a million dollars and I would say I have about ten dollars. And then I wondered where the other people were that also have metaphorically or energetically ten dollars like me. And when I scanned the room and could only keep re-honing in on a broom that was propped up against the wall, I knew I was almost alone in this feeling. That it was me making myself feel this way. So I thought, well if can communicate with this broom, maybe I can communicate with my body.

I like left Zenon all “Sound of Music’d out” like: OMG ARE THESE FLOWERS? DO YOU SMELL THAT? DO YOU FEEL THAT WIND? I said hello to every stranger on Hennepin Avenue. We often take for granted our breath and our movement. Dancing at the open house made me think bout my body, its limitations, my misguided assumptions about dance, how I am choosing to move my body through space, and how it could move through space, should I let it. We all do a fair amount of scripted, conditioned movements, and often our bodies have to operate in this systematized and rigid way. I felt more respect for the thoughts surrounding bodies moving through space, and what that can mean or communicate artistically or spiritually. I learned from this day that we all deserve to wiggle and squiggle around that’s for sure, and I’ve been doing a lot more of it since I spent this day at Zenon. I encourage anyone to take a class, and if you take Tap come prepared with shoes if you want to even try to fit in.

Katelyn Farstad is a visual artist, musician, and writer that almost entirely exists in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Farstad has shown artworks in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Beriln. She has collaborated with several dancers in the Twin Cities making costumes, props and sounds, and severely hopes to continue this work.