Morgan Ziegler In The Hole

This is welcome to in the whole. This is my first and most favorite guest yet, Morgan Ziegler. Dancer, choreographer, cool guy number one. And I really excited. We're here in Morgan Ziegler's very cool bedroom. How did this start? This started with competitive dance, right? Yeah. I grew up as a competition dancer. I started in second grade, so I think I was like seven or eight. And I was gonna make a six seven joke there. And I really tried. But for storytelling accuracy, let the record show I was seven or eight. And I had been at this studio I was at since I was four, I believe. Breaking Ground Dance Center in Pleasantville, New York, shout out. Eventually they asked me to audition for the competition team. Oh my god. Yeah, the day of the audition was my birthday. Really? Yeah. Like at the very first audition team. My very first audition for the competition team. And I think I only auditioned for the audition once. Did you inquire about dancing? Like had you seen friends dancing and asked about competition? The studio owner talked to my mom about my brother auditioning. And my brother decided not to audition, but I auditioned. I thought it was so special that the audition was on my birthday. I felt like that was something that was meant to be. And you were excited? Oh, so excited. So excited. I loved dance. I loved performing growing up. I have Leo Moon. And so I think a big part of my expression of emotion has to do with performance. Not to believe in astrology. But this is very top of mind because the other day my mom texted me and it was her mom's birthday my Lola and my Lola passed when I was four. And so my mom was texting me and she was like, "Oh, isn't it true that at World Cup my preschool, that summer camp you saying I miss you by my least iris, to your whole class about your grandma?" And that is indeed true. Five-year-old me decided to process grief by singing a my-- performing a myelis iris song for her preschool summer camp. And so truly before I knew what any of the astrology stuff was, I've always been a Leo Moon. I've always been very expressive and dramatic. Proof is in the pudding. And I'm sure Lola appreciated it. Lola, my Lola butterfly. It was her birthday on the 25th. She would have been 80. My Lola butterfly tattoo I have on my ribs is actually for my Lola and my mom is an asking one. I thought it was a Christmas present. And her favorite animal was monarch butterfly. Oh really? So we really specifically monarch butterflies. My mom saw them on the other day and she texted in our group. It was the day after Lola's birthday. And she's like, "So, I'm on our butterfly on my drive today." And we always know that's our Lola saying hi. Did she ever do any dance? Did your mom or even Lola? My Lola was a competitive gymnast actually. I don't know if she was also a chemical engineer. My grandpa was a chemical engineer. It's funny. My mom and her sister both have the initials. Well, birth initials for EMC. My mom's ethylene may seriaco. And my aunt is Eileen Marty, seriaco. And so when my mom got married to my dad, Z, one year my great-on-an-uncle got her little sign that says E equals MC squared instead of this two it's Z. Oh, that's so sweet. And in her name, ethylene is chemical compound C2H4. Oh, my mom is named after a chemical compound. That's so cool. Very sciency. Did your name come from anything? Or do you know what it comes from? I don't know where Morgan comes from. I know my middle name is. My grandpa's name is Manuel, my Lola, and my middle name is Emanuel. Oh, so it's like the feminized version with like the LLE, like French spelling. Yeah. I have Terrell ADHD and so half of this is gonna be Loki on musical. No, 'cause it's gonna have no fun. I mean, as long as you love me, I think this is usable because I think there is something to be said about like there was a competitive spirit for a body-based art form. My dad was a competitive tennis player. So you guys are all very competitive. Or was it competition or is there like competitive spirit like game? Like board games get two intense style. So we stopped having family game night when I was maybe four or five because I got mad that I lost it being go. Classic. Which is by the way like a good chance-based game. But I got mad that I was. And it also doesn't relate to skill. Oh yeah, no skill. No ability. I got mad and I lost whenever it was really game that again. Winners don't accept losing, actually. It's the Marty Supreme. Like I am not even considering the option. I was not. I was a sort of loser growing up. And that's why you're really good. I low-key lost a lot of that dog in me though. I feel like I was a very competitive, spiteful kid. Yeah. Was it because of dance though? Like do you think that me? No. Do you think it kind of prevented that dog in you? Do you know what I mean? Like do you think it actually is the reason you lost the dog in you? No. Actually, I don't think that's dance. I think with. I was never like crazy competitive with dance. I think I mostly was competitive with myself. That I had certain expectations for myself of things I wanted for myself. But it was never like. I need to be better than these other people. That was never how. my mentality was framed. Obviously I competed against my friends. But we also competed together. Our group dances were always our most important thing. Much more than our solos or the small groups. Do those or trios. We would have them compete against each other. It was very much we were always so happy for our friends to win. I know this is not the case in every competition studio. I had a really great culture at my studio. I love the girls I grew up competing with. I still have a group chat where I text them. That was such a place of stability and comfort and security for me growing up. Being competitive with yourself. What did that look like then? Was it putting in extra or even what does that look like now too? Growing up, oh my god, I was never naturally flexible. So my first year on the competition team, I would fall asleep in my split. I couldn't do a full split yet. So I would stack pillows up under to close the gap to make it more comfortable. I would do that and gradually take a pillow down until I could do a full split. I would stretch my splits while I was doing homework or reading. I wanted to just be able to do more. It's a tangible and clear direction of progress. You can see the progression. It's very easy to say it used to be four pillows. It feels clear forward. It's hard because I feel like now in my life I don't really have things that are like clear progress markers like that. I already learned how to do most of this stuff that I need to be able to do to try and have a career in this. Like the basic toolbox. All of the goals I set are a lot more nebulous for myself. It's like, oh, I would like to present work at a certain place at some point. Even it's so much easier for me to choreograph a work than it is to go about trying to show that work. The problem with like dance as an industry is there is so many things you can do. And all of them actually require different things of you. You need different headshots. And certain types of photography if you're trying to book commercial jobs. That is music videos, touring for artists. Like award shows, then there's the contemporary like concert contemporary world. And that requires different training, different, different. I just thought like a whole different style of a setting. And I think that also then like absolutely leads over into how you market yourself on social media. I would show be able to show this by scrolling down my Instagram feed and pulling up a couple of profiles to show the difference. - Just have to know who you are as an artist and have a clear path of what you're trying to do. And I think that's something I'm still very much figuring out for myself. I have not even been trying to full-time pursue dance and choreography for a year. It has not been a year yet. And I took four years off of serious intensive training during college. - So this is the exploring thing? - Yeah. I'm like very much still trying to figure out what even exists in that world as career. Like what is out there? - Yeah. - After I graduated, I asked my mom if she knew where all my old reports cards were. 'Cause I thought it would just be interesting to look at. Like at the end of my formal institutional academic career for time being. And multiple comments about how I struggle with free writing. Like specifically that like what I write is good. I don't write a lot. Like I'm terrible at producing volume. I've always been such a huge reader. I have always like voracious reader devoured books growing up. I used to like pull all nighters and pick a stack of like three or four books and read them all in one night just because I could, because I wanted to, because I loved stories, I loved words. I'm so moved when I find other people who can use language in a way I find beautiful. I get very frustrated with myself when I cannot say something beautifully or in a way that feels like the right way. And so I'd rather just not write anything because if I can't say it right, then what's the point of like documenting it? - You don't have to use your most recent piece or the most recent piece that I saw as an example, but like the writing portion of that was very important. Writing that was pretty easy for me. Comparatively of everything I've ever had to write ever, I think part of it is that for I have never really like personally found a way to writing. I feel like all the writing I did growing up was an assignment. And so I got very used to writing being following other people's instructions and doing things a specific way and spinning out a very specific task. And I never really got to explore for myself. What I'm interested in writing, how I'm interested in writing it. And then I think that's like, it's the whole thing of that. Like writing is a practice. And because I feel like I'm not good at it, I don't practice it. And so I don't get better. - Were you good at dancing right off the bat? Like I think a lot of people that find things come easily to them, they need to learn later on how to work through discomfort. Like did you have to work through that with dance too? - I'm not. - Because it sounds like for flexibility you did, but like. - I'm not gonna say like dance came easy to me. But I also wouldn't say that like it was difficult. It's just that like I did work hard. Like I think my ability is a direct product of my effort. And I put a lot of effort in regardless of whether I had natural ability. And so I don't really know what like baseline natural ability was I was like good at dance before I ever started training and dance. But I trained a lot in dance. And I worked really hard and I put a lot of time in like outside of the studio. Also like just because I wanted to, because I wanted to be better when I was in the studio. Did you have a clear reason for wanting to be better? Like did you know you would wanna be a dancer when you grew up or was it not at all? I wanted to be better because I liked doing it. - Yeah. - Because I really just loved it. And I never really thought I was gonna grow up and do dances a career. For one, I think most of my like exposure to dance as a career growing up was dance as was commercial dance or Broadway. And neither of those things really spoke to me as something I wanted to do as a career because I did not want my ability to make money to be like directly connected to my physical ability and also my looks. Do you know where that fear came from? Or even not even fear, but where that concern comes from? - It's just that I know that dances of industry were especially for commercial projects. There is a look. I feel like I spent a whole lot of my life trying to be something people were looking for. And that is a like deep part of my difficult relationship with femininity and gender presentation in general. I feel like because for the most part I still appear conventionally feminine. If I was to pursue a commercial career, like I would not be able to be as visibly queer. Kind of a two-part question. When at what age do you think that you learned that and do you think you've seen that change? Like has the industry been shifting or is it kind of a pseudo shift that is perceived but not actually shifting at the root? - I don't, it's hard to say because I was obviously like so completely unaware of the role of my relationship with my gender that plays into, I think how I see it now. I very much believe in like, queerness as a politic, as a personal politic. And I think that like having to commercialize and and sell myself and it have that be like two so mixed up pretty tied to my looks. I can't do that, I can't do that, that would be a lot of pressure for me. I am really more interested in doing work that depends on what either my body or mind can do. The the concert contemporary scene is a lot more inaccessible and also like relies a lot more on like funding because it's not marketable, it's not selling something. I would rather be doing work that is based on what I can physically do. - Yeah, and the more healthy and sustainable pursuit is the one that doesn't, it doesn't have to involve that. So why force it? You talked about group and like synchronization and like the community aspect of dance a lot like when you were first starting out. And you still choreograph like group pieces. Any thoughts on like the difference between group and solo pieces and like what bringing groups together and like how you're choosing people. And I think this is something I'm still working out very much for myself because in my choreograph process I pretty much choreograph everything on myself. - Mm. - And then I will teach it to other people after having made it and set it on myself. I think that can sometimes make it harder or it's not that it's harder, it's just different. I would make different things if I tried to verbally communicate and build things removed from feeling it in my own body. And it is absolutely, it's just a different way of generating material and that's actually that's something that I need to push myself at getting better with and doing more. I think a lot of times I just get anxious about like asking people to to set aside time to to help me just try things out and work on things. Um, I know everyone is is so stretched for time and trying to do a million things. And also I'm so not in a position where I can like compensate people for for taking that time to to play around and research stuff with me. And so I just get I get very in my head about it and and end up like not reaching out to people to do stuff. Which is bad and I need to get better out of it. I get scared to do things that I don't know for sure I can do well. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're like I know there will be a learning curve in in in trying something that I don't normally do. Yeah. It's nerve-wracking to to put myself out there and and ask other people to believe in me. Yeah. Yeah. I think uh having trust in what you've said for other things is uh you were working on pieces choreographing stuff teaching people what you have created and then uh there was kind of a shift and then after that you were learning pieces from other people and just doing the performing side of things and like not doing choreographing and just knowing that other people too appreciate the balance of um sometimes leading and sometimes being a part of like someone else's pursuit. Yeah. Because that's part of like dance and art as a whole but also like knowing that it is beneficial for both sides even though it feels like someone is sacrificing for your dream. Right. It is contributing to their larger dream as well or it should. Yeah. In an ideal world. I don't know. I just I get nervous about asking people to show up for me in general because I feel like a lot of times people disappoint me in that regard. Like oh my god last year for my my last piece I choreographed for my college dance group there's 15 people in the dance which is which is crazy hard to schedule and coordinate. Everyone's a college student has other has other work has other rehearsals all of this stuff out of 15 dancers only three people and I am one of those three people people were at every rehearsal I had for that piece. All 11 nope 12 other people in the piece missed at least one rehearsal some missed two or three. That makes it really hard for me when I'm trying to set work and and have to then separately teach people stuff they missed because they weren't there and and I can send them a video of it and they'll say they'll learn off the video and they won't learn off the video. The creative field as a whole if you cannot rely on the other people that it is already such a fight to be able to be doing something like this to make something more of a fight it is always disheartening at the least right it makes something harder that's like so difficult and now I like go back and I watch the footage of that dance and I'm like I made something really sick here and a lot of it visually doesn't read because people don't know whether they're doing and that's so frustrating and I want to be able to like submit that footage to stuff and and be able to like showcase that as as part of my work but I actually don't feel confident because I look at it and and like people are not executing it to a certain level and and it's kind of not necessarily their fault it's kind of a function of it's for a fucking college dance group showcase like everyone has a million other things we're all learning a million other dances and also like it's final season and and we have all this shit to do and so like it's it's everyone spreads super fucking thin and I get it it's hard to to do everything and do it well I get that I like I totally like didn't know how like I there's definitely like one or two dances that I was in in that showcase that I didn't know that I just didn't really know or or I I knew it just well enough and then the moment after it flew completely out of my brain yeah like I was was really in short-term memory and I and I get that but two things can be true people can be spread to thin and let each other down and make something that should have been really beautiful not completely realized right and that sucks and that's hard like I look at that and I see that there was a lot of potential in that work and I and I am theoretically interested in in resetting and reworking that that piece because I really like what I made but then it's like what what I like I don't have something to rework it for I don't know if I would want to do it with 15 dancers again I don't know if there are 15 people that I can find that are all free at the same time that's that's so hard especially now that I'm post-grading everyone's working jobs and like everyone's life looks different yeah yeah this is a very hard uh life stage yeah because we have not yet a ton of resources stored up but more time than we may have had in previous years or for some people it's a lot less time we have a lot of for everyone it's just a very different schedule we are all going to school in September or even if not even people that think go to school they're like I'm still understanding that a lot of my friends have a spring break like spring break still exists to us right now I'm in a couple processes right now oh yeah okay so time we've been rehearsals for a couple things right now oh cool oh my yeah one of these is actually I'm they're both cool one of them I'm like so so so jazzed and excited about um yeah tell me which way tell me about these or some one of them or all them or whatever but like how do you find out about these things um okay so one of them the first ones in April um and it's this thing called choreographers Carnival I'm guesting with a company that I guess did feel like a video thing they did back in October choreographers Carnival it's like a late night dance show that happens in a club and it's just fun the dance is super fun it's to it's to victory lap I front again oh no kidding then I fucking love that song until it's super dope dance and I have a couple friends who are like also that I've worked with on other stuff that are also in the piece and it's a good group of people and I really love working with the choreographer and I'm very excited to get to perform the other project I'm working on right now that I'm dancing in this one I'm so so excited for we are creating a site specific piece in the half type of escape park there's three sections to the work I'm in the third section the first section is kind of like how the world is right now um the second section is kind of like chaos riot revolution and then the third section is like rebuilding like how do how do we rebuild a new world yeah I got involved in this project because I didn't intensive in January this this person um looking to one of the dropping classes I I've taken a couple other classes before with them and after class they come to me and they're like you're based in city right and I was like yeah and they're like I'm working on this project in that's happening in June and I'd be really interested in having you be a part of it um if like what's your Instagram I can tell you to use some details and they told me about the project and I was like oh yeah like this is this is sick and this is exactly the type of work I want to be doing right now like let's go and we had our first rehearsal for that last Friday and then on my way home from a rehearsal I broke my hand but it's okay our next rehearsal isn't until my birthday oh really wait we've got so excited right so just enough time for the hand just enough time for my hand to heal yeah so I can hang off of the half pipe and roll around really yeah no we're like we're like running up it like like interacting with the space sliding down it yes like like fully tight so like I'm so jazz I'm so jazz but he spent like half of our first rehearsal just like playing around and see what we can do and like I was like hanging off the like with my knees hanging off the top and then like letting go and sliding back down yeah it's it's really it's super awesome it's a little scary but it's really awesome I'm super excited about it I feel like the biggest thing I missed out for not like doing college dance and like doing a BFA is that I like didn't really get to do a lot of like collaborative group play like play but like specifically like [BLANK_AUDIO] concert style. I feel like all of the like choreography like learning performance stuff I've ever done has been more similar to the stuff I did in my competition days. And it's like still like oh like we'll learn like a three-minute long piece and then we'll perform it like one night. I am very interested in exploring with like longer work that also is like more conceptual. That is really the avenue I'm hoping to go down with both the work I create and the work I perform in for the most part. That being said I'm not exactly in a place to be super choosy with which projects I work on and not everything that I work on right now is going to be like my dream type of project but I actually am working on something there right now that is like kind of what the dream is yeah it sounds like like this at the skate park this is like a really good example of clear storytelling. And I'm definitely curious as to how the storytelling aspect of like writing goes. For the most part I do like to have my music first. I think that's usually the easiest starting point just because I think musicality is something that I prioritize a lot in in my work so I feel like it's so hard for me to create like phrase work and material removed from that. The writing was the very last thing I did for for the piece I presented last month. I went through my my journal from from the six months that I had been kind of toying with that idea and underlined anything that could be anything rewrote it all in one sheet and then from there kind of just pieced it together there's already like kind of a structure of the piece that was cut through the music. First song drunk by Dijon a duet and I really did want the the beginning of the piece to be a more like a softer entry point but still exploring some of like the tension. I think in just in designing the movement for that piece I wanted there to be some softness and delicateness to it but I was kind of thinking like like a dog begging that there is still a very strong like want just behind that without context it's kind of hard to know but I'm talking I that's okay eventually also the footage the footage will be gotten and I will be able to like yes and I will also be able to view it repeatedly for my own pleasure. Thanks I don't know what any of it looks like I haven't seen it I know I know lucky me though I I I found it so beautiful that I that I cried quite a bit originally didn't want to dance in the piece um honestly because I've never made something I haven't danced in I choreograph it and I also dance it at yeah um as to ensure like execution is reliably done not even that I think um sometimes it's just like a numbers thing that if I want a certain number of people in a piece and and I also know it and and can do it because I've made it it's so much easier for me to just be in it instead of teaching another person to do it yeah that's how I felt with okay and this is also because I'm a huge procrastinator with everything I do I like six months to make this piece I chore I started my my phone the the first piece of set material I did I set a month away from the show I do think there is like something so valuable in in making something but then giving it to other people and letting them find their themselves in in the structure in the frame I've given them and I think like I can give the same piece of movement to to five different people and all of them are going to do something different with it and I think that's so beautiful and I am interested in like I'm continuing to incubate this work and in teaching the the solo I created to someone else and and having someone do something different with it yeah seeing how it translate right take on new right but it felt kind of mean to make someone learn a piece so quick and intricate well because the other the other soloist was a six and a half minutes solo she learned that she learned most of that in like 20 minutes yeah right that was a lot as a function of what the material was it's a lot easier to to teach fast because a lot of that was more improvised scores like there was like a good like at least four counts of eight where I was like just play with this like texture and intention this is the general frame like explore it that was that's a lot easier to to teach fast yeah the piece I did was a lot more actual like set structured material it's hard to learn stuff especially when you're learning it and it's also like physically very demanding the first solo was kind of exploring a little more of the like melancholy like sad aspect of of want of desire as well as like the the idea of like twisting like twisting contorting fashioning yourself in order to be desirable for someone else second solo was that when you when you twist yourself up and try and tear yourself apart in those ways the the rage and anger and hate that I think can can boil up and and and and kind of overtake I was thinking more about like like that like violent imagery around desire that I do think that there is absolutely a long aspect I think about like the imagery of of teeth at at a neck and that like I think I was getting a lot into cannibalism imagery honestly it's really funny I made a Pinterest board with all my visuals and you know how they usually view the more ideas section and they'll give you a bunch of stuff Pinterest won't they go like we have no more ideas oh yeah because it can't say it can't be like here's the hotline for if you're interested in cannibalism so they just act like the search isn't there yeah they just whatever I've put on that board is a little too disturbing for them that they've said you don't need any more ideas yeah yeah you don't need more ideas they're concerned for me. Stop ideating now right go back and it's like oh my god I'm literally doing this for art like this is for creative purposes actually and I'm not even being weird about it that it's about the the nying and like the nying and and also like the idea of of being consumed by something like feeling like either that something is eating you from the inside out or or wanting someone someone so wanting something someone so bad that like you feel the need that like to physically to come and want like that there feels there's almost something religious in that of a sense of like of worship yeah to worship something so much you want to consume it is maybe the pinnacle of appreciation right or we're not even appreciation because it's not it's it is a little more like sick than that I guess yeah appreciation is maybe the soft core word it is it is it is worship like yeah it is worship yeah it is to feel like not even maybe beneath but maybe belittled by or maybe shame did how much you want that thing oh absolutely I think that's and that's the biggest thing is like ultimately the thing that that eats us is is shame I feel but also was really interested in exploring like a lot of a lot of shame about want and desire and feeling I have this thing where I feel like I'm always doing something wrong yeah and wait did you did you grow up religious is this like the religious guilt thing that kind of kind of I I was raised Roman Catholic I'm confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church shout out whatever I I was never really into it I always wanted to play my DS in church and I would bring books so my mom would let me read them during the homily. - Mm-hmm. - Read like, read it. really was never into it. Like never. - Yeah, never like drink. Well, I probably shouldn't say drink the cool way. But never like. - Drank your leg in wine. - Never like a drinker that. - Drank your leg and had to rake your. - Drank your leg dirty communal cup. Oh my God, no wonder, no wonder we had COVID. Bro, it's so scary. Every, my mom always talked about this. Every time the community in Wafers are one thing, you have it, you eat it. But then you could go up and drink the wine and you drink it from the same cup and then they'd wipe it with a napkin and then someone else would cup and drink from the same cup. - And it's like there's backwash in there. - Yeah, that's actually my nightmare. - It's disgusting. The communal wine cup disgusting. - Yeah. - Oh my God, it scares me. It would actually really scare me. - But the true worship thing would be like, to like fully worship it, because someone is like, you want their backwash. Like you would have like a sick pleasure. Like to truly worship it would to be like. - But it's not Jesus' backwash. It's because it's supposed to be like the body and blood of Christ. - Yeah. - It is like actually that is like a consumption thing of you eat the body and blood of Christ and you drink the body, you eat the body of Christ, you drink the blood and then you're cleansed. You're one with God with that higher power. And I think it's actually, like wrote about this little in my journal, but like the idea of like communion is what that sacrament is called and just the, when I think of the word communion, it's like being with. - Yeah. - It is like a privilege to be able to be that connected. - Right. - Like that is something that one can do with God that I can't do with my loved ones. Like you can't consider them, which is kind of what the piece is about. It's like the gnawing of the thing you can't. - Oh yeah, it's like, is like desire is a shameful animal. I think there is something very animalistic about it is the other thing. It's like more than cannimals I think about like, wolves, predators. - Like, or just anything that like has been trained to hunt. The aspect of like possession I think is also more of an animalistic urge, but I also, I don't necessarily know if that's an animalistic urge because I think a lot of like possession has to do with a culture of property and ownership, which I think is actually a very human construct. - Yeah, like possession is a learn thing, but territory is in theory. - Territory, oh sure. But I do think that like, - But possession is built. God, this is crazy. And I sound, guys, I'm not polyamorous. I am not advocating for any opinion on polyamory. The other day, I was in the bookstore, and as I do, I got a book. It's called monogamous mind polygamous terror. The cover is really pretty, so I was tempted enough, but then I also read the back and I was like, I actually was talking about something like this earlier, which is that like theoretically monogamy as a structure, like kind of upholds and reinforces, like structures of possession and domination and ownership. Then I read the back of this book, and it's like kind of a, it's pretty much like about that. I don't know. I'm interested to read it. I think it's interesting. I don't personally think I'm poly. There's a lot to say about this that I can't get into right now. - No, I think that I too am not, I too, I'm not polyamorous. But I will say, I think there is something we said about, like as we all know, marriage is invented so that men can own women. - Right. - And as many atrocities as possible, financially and physically, et cetera, et cetera. But because things are changing, we can still have the existence and security and bond of something like marriage without it having all the things. So monogamy can enable and encourage possession and domination of these things. In the same way that I would argue, I've seen a lot of polyamory, a lot of polygamy has gone pretty south, less amory, less amore and more, like how many pets can I have, honestly. - Yeah. - But again, in the exact same capacity, monogamy too, it can become a game of cheating, how many pets can I have. So it is less in the contract of the thing and more in how you use it. - Right. I think it's an interesting theory question. - Not to be annoying. - Low-key. - Let's theorize our polyamory. It's big right now. 2026 is actually the year. - You turn 23 and all of a sudden, all of your friends are talking about polyamory. - Yeah. - That's okay. - And then you turn 28 and all of your friends have to start hanging out naked together. - This is what I've heard. - This is true. This is true. - This is true. - If you don't ask how you heard this is true. - This is what it's like to live in Bushwick. - Bushwick is exactly what they say at the moment. - It's actually exactly. - It's worse than they say it is. - It's still to the brim. - You can't imagine what's happening. - You can't imagine what's happening at Dikesana. - In rooms you couldn't imagine. - The worst people you have ever met are all gathering in rooms you could not imagine. - And having a great time. - And they're doing ketamine. - And they're having a great time. - You started dance at a very young age and we can all say that there was probably an advantage to that. There is probably evidence for the advantage of starting later perhaps. But for people that are inspired by dance or wanting to dance or maybe just wanting creativity in their life in general but feel like, because I also had the benefit of dancing when I was young. So if I returned to dance now it would be a return and not a new endeavor. So if there's any encouragement for people wanting to start it whether it's getting back into it or especially for those that have never, never been taught to be in touch with their body, especially since like, your Lolo is a competitive gymnast and like, even tennis is like you have to be very aware of how you're doing. - Oh my dad's been a crazy athlete. - Yeah, so like I didn't even get into that and I'm low key for God, I talked about my dad. But no, he was dope. He like locked on to the UCLA tennis team. - Really? - Yeah. - That's amazing. - Like beat one of the kids who was recruited to walk onto the team. - Wait, that's amazing. - That's so much fun. - No, they make Netflix originals about things like that. - Yeah, my dad's dope. And there's always been so active. - Body and movement and active was important in your family. Some people are tempted or especially at our age in this life stage maybe recognizing that they don't have that and searching for it. - Dude, I think we're all actually hot-tailed. I think we're all depressed because no one's doing movement games anymore. Just that I think like with kids, even you play freeze-dance. Like you encourage kids to move their bodies and that's such an like an essential part of education. And I think that like such a big part of like our culture today alienates us from our bodies. I'm like so like number one biggest advocate of everyone developing a personal movement practice. I think a lot of people like are quick to say that they can't dance and have a specific idea of what being able to dance looks like. And sometimes there's a lot of pressure in that language to claim oneself as a dancer or to say yeah, like I can dance pretty well. I feel like that feels like there's a certain expertise or level of ability required. I think absolutely everyone is a mover. And I think it can be as simple as like for five minutes a day like putting on your favorite song and just and dancing around to it and not caring what it looks like. That's the other problem. No one dances at the clubs anymore because everyone's so scared they're gonna get clipped. Everyone's so scared that someone's gonna take their phone out and video them and it's gonna get posted somewhere. And so no one wants to look stupid. So no one wants to dance anymore. And for one, what makes you think you're gonna look stupid if you dance, even if you do look stupid, you're having so much more phone than whoever's looking at you through a phone screen with a movement practice. Specifically, it's the most important thing. And I would kind of say the only important thing is how it feels. I think especially if people just want to move for fun, it kind of doesn't matter how it looks. I think a lot of times in. in a world where we are so image conscious and and through social media like construct in an image self and And there is this this expectation of of an idea of one self that we have to uphold and maintain publicly and I think to do things for ourselves like truly we have to say like Fuck it to how things look Like yeah, I can a lot of the times I dance around my room it probably looks super fucking stupid it actually probably does and And I get really conscious when I film myself dancing because then I'm thinking about making it look good or or or making it Like making it some something trying to trying to be Be something other than then letting it just be what it is The most fulfilled I am when I'm dancing is when I just I allow myself to move without judgment and follow sensation mm-hmm, and I think for anyone looking to Develop a a personal movement practice like prioritize feeling please please please My favorite way to dance is is to To pull a curtain over the mirror and turn the lights off and just listen to my music Yeah, and and have and have open space There's a big difference that needs to be recognized between Feeling good and feeling embarrassed or feeling shameful and you can feel shameful and not feel Like that can be not a bad feeling that can just be the thing that needs to be worked through Yeah, to know that I can I can feel embarrassed dancing silly at the club or poorly skills that wise at the club But yeah, people need to feel good more. I think people should be proud for doing it at all Yeah, it is such a an expressive expansive, explorative form of movement and That's the other part of it is that like there is such a physicality to but it's it is an art It is absolutely still an art and like art in in the sense of like Like radical potential Within dance there are so many some of these styles and and techniques that are codified forms and You also can kind of do anything You kind of can do anything and and there are no rules I love that. I think this is this is the note that I was hoping we would get to which is dance is expansive and expressive and yeah, if it is just five minutes dark in your room alone and that's all you need that's great But yeah, there's so much opportunity for people to dance their lives and I'm so happy that you've danced in yours my final request dude I goodness for comp dance give it for Compton not even not low-keyed Okay, I love comp dance. I absolutely love it. I think part of why I Comp dance and also like the the culture of the town I grew up in low-key and and the the academic pressure I felt Is a big reason why I didn't pursue dance growing up my ballet teacher since I was 10 was telling me I'm gonna be a lawyer And I was I theoretically have a Lot of skills that would that would help me succeed in that conventional way, but they were not doing radical Potential the way that we want to know I think that's the that's the thing is like okay For the record I went to school I have I have a bachelor of arts in politics with a minor in philosophy um I think my big frustration with politics and why I love philosophy is because politics really doesn't have a lot of room for creativity um I I think that like very often Things that are creative things that are different require more effort require more time I think that that is not something most people want to put in you look at and obviously this is not the purpose of of an office like doge But it's government efficiency that we we want to slash we want to slash things in and and put less effort and and make things run like a machine like a business That is what my finds are frustrating and so what I loved about philosophy is that it is inherently a creative expansive questioning like form That like the the whole point is is to try and understand the nature of things you look at early Greek philosophers Humans are so creative in in our in our ideas to try and make sense of the world Most of the time our culture like really doesn't prioritize things that take time and and effort Like we live in a convenience culture and I think creativity requires difficulty and and and not always doing the the easiest thing or the first thing sitting with what impulses are and And having that be separate from the actual actions we take my last question after this would just be like media that you would recommend Like if it's a song or a book or a movie or a dance performance you saw that changed everything recently or okay Yeah, dance performance Nicole Von Arx's cry wolf. I think aesthetically I love Nicole Von Arx's work I think the physicality of it is is really awesome and Also like from a conceptual point of view it was taking the the tale of the boy who cried wolf and kind of looking at truth and and the stories we tell and Why why might the boy cry wolf why Why might we we listen pay attention where does where does truth get misinterpreted lost? Who who gets to tell the truth whose story is true? I might still I still am thinking about that work and the The conceptual nature of it like the the intellectual question and then obviously how do he transform that into physicality into an embodied Expression Especially when it's the story being written before yeah, you do a lot of articulating what has what stories been told through movement And this was sort of like the story has already been written and how do we express it through movement? Yeah That I I saw the background to it, but I think it's so beautiful amazing Right now. Oh, I'm reading a million things. I have a whole stack of books right now. I'm reading art on my mind by Bell Hooks and it's I've I just started reading this But it's it's very very interesting talking about art as as Like a a life force creative force, but also like why why creativity and art has been devalued why like as a culture and specifically in Bell Hooks is writing She's writing about in black culture why art is and and the pursuit of art is not seen as as important or or valued or perpetuated and I think that's very interesting and And I'm I'm I'm I'm so excited. It's like further delve into those ideas listening to oh God first name it comes to mind is the song Geese by C-Rose It's because it's been making me very sad this one line of it. That's a reference to wild geese by Mary Oliver and I'm I might be paraphrasing this I might be quoting a jerk. I don't know the lyric is You don't have to be good, but you cannot do nothing and I think that's the biggest thing I am trying to remind myself consistently in process and and in life in general is Is that like the most important thing is like is being in the practice of doing doing and and there are not as much good choices and bad choices and right choices and wrong choices as there are choices and and and that more important than than doing something right is to do it and a lot of times I stop myself from doing things because I am not certain I can do them well. and that's I guess the biggest thing I missed I missed about the way I worked as a kid is is that I really had that mindset that I can't do it yet but I want to and so I will. and I don't know it's obviously it's it's different and there's there's so many more things on my plate now that I could not have imagined having to deal with them and there are so many things that were that were taken care of for me that now I have to do myself and also like I am capable and can do it. and I am capable and can do hard things. yeah. yeah. and pursuit is about perseverance. yeah. and you're doing. I truly I really do believe that I have a lot of confidence and not a lot of belief and I think that confidence. oh yeah because I think that's that's such a big ADHD thing where because I really struggle with like executive functioning and like basic taking care of myself functions. it's really hard to like have faith in myself to be able to follow through on larger things because I'm sitting here thinking man you can't even get up to 2pm and you and and you spend so long thinking about whether you should eat or shower first that it's 5pm and you haven't done either. yeah I think I think a lot of I feel like I hear this pitfall a lot and people are age or maybe that's just like the people I'm talking to. about the sort of thing but like fall into the narrative of I can't do this like I can't even do X so how could I possibly do Y? yeah. is really dangerous because yeah I don't do plenty of other I don't do plenty of maybe necessary obligatory important things because I'm doing things that are maybe less maybe more important but like right this is again which is such it's kind of like always in a annoying point to make but like things can be true. yeah I can brush my teeth nearly every night and I can try to like kind of kill it at work or something like I can do both or maybe some weeks I'll do neither maybe some months or this by myself on all front and other weeks I'm flossing and brushing my teeth and my room is clean and I'm killing it at work and I'm seeing all my friends and I'm like yeah with grandma like there is just it's so hard and there is imbalance in the small scheme and there is ideally and typically balance in the in the grander yeah I just think what's so what's so hard about it is that like I think my mentality is is so focused on all the things I have to do and then to have it to done too many that it's it's really I think it's very easy to forget like taking time to appreciate all the things that I am already doing have done like have in the works because I'm just thinking about all the things I still have to do or feeling all the things all right because it's it's hard to make a priority list when in in theory they're all number one right five things should be number one how much important to do and I only have so much energy yeah my name is so fucho and yell this has been in the whole with more d'enzigler my first and most fave guest do you have any final words my final words are everyone get a movement practice right now and also everyone needs to start doing more contact improvisation in the club I think we need to be dancing weirder in the clubs more at least but but also like there are really no rules and I would love to be not the only person who's on the floor hitting my my wiggly worms my my noodle elings my my midnight wiggles yeah I'm gonna need more people to join me in that it's really fun it's really fun and you can dance however you want like like really there's no rules actually they didn't say all the rules are made up in low-key fake like everything's fake and and a construct and we all need to like get weirder everyone needs to be more of a fucking freak do you have do you have a club racks for the people woods Wednesdays no no one needs to go to woods Wednesday no one needs to go um a mad they have a cover now boss Nova Civic Club is is pretty dope oh this this is more of like a pop up um rave thing there's a techno rave called plainy techno and they also like there are contemporary choreographers that present work there and it happens at the same ski park that the the dance performance I'm doing in june is in uh they connected it all now just the ski park just is chill with people like use it for yeah for dopes it for dopes off that I think is a really awesome space where you can be where dance as art form and also dance as like communal ritual exists together and I think that's super awesome and I think there should be so many more spaces like that um yeah everyone needs to dance more everyone I love dance so much and I think every time I go to a dance class I stand when I'm not dancing can I watch everyone and I think about how lucky I am to be able to have this the shared vocabulary with people I think it's it's so special to to be able to move and and to share that with other people and everyone needs to just dance more it doesn't have to look a certain way like seriously like fuck specific like aesthetic like hierarchies for for what what good dance is I think that everyone needs to especially like if you are not if you are not like pursuing dance as a career and and just and just want to dance for fun like please it's for fun it's for fun it should feel good yeah it should feel good it should feel good fuck how it looks yeah I love you so much I love you so much I love you so much I can't wait to have you on again that's gonna be correct then let's hope I have my shit more together you will you will by the nature of I you know how uh there's that saying things don't change unless you do yeah I think I think sometimes should change is even if you don't even if you really want things to say the same things move around you and you gotta be like water oh with that and you will and that's gonna be so darn exciting I can't wait yeah thank you love you thank you this guy this is my son shout out shout out and a finger my dear friend and sophomore year roommate she moved to Chicago for grad school this is our son together I now have custody of our son I sleep with him every night yeah sleep over sleep over sleep over love you juster love you rooster