<p>Umm this is a draft of what I had written to answer the use a quote to describe yourself or whatever prompt it is for Cornell.</p>
<p>--ahh, yes, a little bout me-- I was accepted once before, deposited even, but family catastrophe forced me to withdraw earlier this summer--</p>
<p>Here it is, have fun picking at it...
(constructive criticism will be welcomed)</p>
<p>Catch a Dance Like the Sun</p>
<p>You live in your head, she said. So she made me dance.
I offered funny faces, bended limbs at odd angles, and heard I was a hit. I was always scratching my head to hear that Id done well, because for me, my piece for the 2005 Choreographers Showcase was a 2:04 solo of concentrated panic as I translated images of motion, so clearly imprinted on my mind, into movements of body. What was for the audience an event worthy of their talk and cheer was for me an experience that provided valuable insight into my character.
I come from a notoriously talented family, artists who pursue their craft with a ferocity driven by inner brilliance, and so by circumstance everyday at home is an inundation of cultural knowledge. But as I am fairly competent in the more concrete matters of life, my family sees my brain as oriented toward the practical. I accepted this, as I was not eager to live in their shadow and feared an artists isolation. I convinced myself that because my personality lacked the extreme eccentricity for which my family is noted, I had no talent to create, much like a closeted homosexual convinces himself hes straight. So I had a job all the summers of my youth, I loaded my senior course curriculum with the likes of BC Calc. and Physics C. I was, then, always frustrated to hear about my idiosyncratic character, frustrated that my endeavors fail to accomplish things the normal way Id hear that I was Miss Fascinating, different from anyone else Ive ever met, that my livejournal (to me, my daily musings) was notorious for its fascinating, super-cerebral, almost grotesque quality.
When assigned a dance to choreograph, I did not treat the task as an artistic endeavor. Instead, it was yet another hurdle, so I worked hard and hoped for the best. Two years of dance classes did not install a library of technique into my resistant limbs I incorporated perhaps only one recognized element of dance into my piece, the round-de-jamb. And, as I had created my dance purely from imagination (and without a mirror, for the more enthusiastic dancers had dibs), I was petrified at the prospect of performing this
concoction. When it turned out successful, I, compelled to receive my compliments graciously, offered a sheepish explanation: Well, I can never do things the right way, I can only do them my way. These words were key to my character, and a friend affirmed,
And it becomes the good way. The audience was charmed by a uniqueness which resulted in a dance that was a little off-center, but great! so clearly, even my endeavors to get me through the day without embarrassment the most quotidian task of school life could sparkle. After that, I learned to trust: Trust my friends, trust myself that I too can produce things creative and worthy of admiration.
Ive always been a pianist, but now I wanted to build, produce, channel this creative potency into the sidewalk cracks of reality as art. Senior year, I was fortunate to keep company with a crowd of kids who really made use of what was around them, city kids who found adventure on every corner, and gradually, my scope widened: I realized that I did not need to imbibe high art 24/7 as my family insisted. Instead of being sullen at not having the third installment of Jean-Christophe to read on Saturday night, I learned to find possibility in the most ordinary of situations. One night, with five friends, a car stereo, and an empty parking lot, we had an impromptu dance party. Or, when Im alone in a city with an hour to spare, I can write a poem: </p>
<p>I come here to
drink juice
water the color
of artificial summer
for 50 cents less </p>
<p>and wait for words
to fall like black ink stars,
because I like
to write in the city. </p>
<p>Once, I wrote
a poem on a scroll
of white paper
birch bark
and let it fly;
it caught
fire
the day
I walked
into sfumato streets.
The air drizzled </p>
<p>with death
cherrywood romances burning
ears, eyes, lips. </p>
<p>In firemens rain
I write to quench
hot coals of memory, </p>
<p>hoping for the day
a black peacock in
dandelion-tangled fields trundles,</p>
<p>tail unfanned,
and not have much to say.</p>
<p>The way I do things inevitably leaves, as a friend called it, a signature of myself. With this confidence I feel free to let go, fumble with my fingers and find inspiration in the quotidian context of life. As the truly creative individual demands a synergy of personal innovation and awareness of their immediate cultural context, I live less in my head now now I can dance.
My creativity does not isolate me; rather, it enhances the time I spend with others.</p>