In retrospect, I think I would call this “Strike A Pose”, because the experience was more akin to moving from one posture to the next rather than dancing. I’ve had an idea for awhile, to do a tenam piece around “unlearning” the violin. That is, deconstructing the elements of playing that I spend so much time trying to develop and maintain. In part, this comes from a desire to tear it all down, rip it up, stomp on it. “It” being my violin and everything I’ve been told I’m supposed to do with it. This part of me feels about 4 years old. Around that age, I told my grandma I wanted to throw my instrument into the bayou and proclaimed “I hate that damn violin”. Another part of me is discovering how rich and beautiful this instrument is. Consider its physical makeup: wood, metal, and horse hair. On some level, playing the violin is about interacting with these materials. To me, horse hair translates as something wild, free, and expressive. So one aspect of my job, as I see it, is to honor this somehow. I thought I would try dancing with these materials to play around with both unlearning and expression. It was fully improvised and there were many moments where I just felt weird, dumb and boring. But to be honest, I sometimes feel those ways when I’m performing something I’ve put many hours into practicing. I got to have a nice conversation with the audience afterwards, which was comprised of my friend Myra (a fellow violinist), a tenam regular named Larry, and a woman who I think just stopped by as she was passing and decided to watch, which is always a really cool aspect of these tenam performances. I wish I had gotten to talk to her more. Larry commented about my performance being another way of interacting with something I am so intimately involved with. It was affirming to hear someone put into words the exact thing I was trying to do. As odd and unpolished as it was, I communicated something. And that always feels pretty big.