Monthly Update: Spread Your Wings

Hello all!

Welcome back to another monthly update! Two months going strong! WOO!

So, for those of you who follow me on facebook and instagram, you will know that I recently (three days ago) ended my time with Naked Boys Singing.

- Let’s discuss - 

So, performers and other artists are usually in the distinctly unique financial position of flux. For five-six months (much longer if you book something really substantial) we are employed and enter into a type of financial organization that the rest of capitalist society is familiar with; we’ll call it: employment. But, we performers, once our time has ended on any production, enter into a new and strange financial organization; we know it as: funemployment. This is a state where one is not employed in one’s profession and must produce income from either management of savings, a pay-the-bills job, and/or by waiting for Powerballia, the goddess of the lottery, to bless us with a win. Come on, Powerballia!

As productions are not ensured to last, nor is our participation in said productions (there are a myriad of reasons for both of these things, that I can gladly discuss with you if you care to message me) funemployment is something that performers encounter with much more frequency and normalcy than the average professional. Where as your average teacher, lawyer, law enforcement officer, or even graphic designer would find being funemployed a wholly strange and unsettling affair, performers must find a way to normalize this way of living…while still acknowledging that funemployment is, in fact, a strange and unsettling affair.

Y’see, not being employed within your profession not only effects one’s financial situation, involving many tiny or several large overhauls of organization, but also involves a great readjustment of one’s emotional and scheduling outlook. As a performer (and, yes, I do mean that this title is to be bestowed upon working and non-working performers) when one is in a production they are given daily or weekly structure to hone their skills and passion, a (hopefully) fair compensation for the services they provide with their art, and the set opportunity to work with, learn from, and grow with fellow artists. But, when said artist enters funemployment, all of that guaranteed structure goes out the window, and must be compensated for and sought elsewhere…which takes a lot of work, y’all.

So, why would someone enter into this funempoyed lifestyle voluntarily, as I have so done?

Well, dear beautiful people, the answer is simple: growth.

I have left Naked Boys to, not only and most importantly, pursue greater financial stability (you are looking at- um, talking to- um, reading from The NoMad Restaurant’s newest Anchor/Team Leader), but to push myself into greater artistic growth. When we enter into a state of comfort, whether it be staying with a boyfriend or girlfriend that we are “just with,” continuing to eat the same food every single morning, or staying in the same show every Saturday, we are accepting our reality as is, without striving or working for more, for greater, for what we truly dream of.

So, I am taking this new step in my life to push myself. I am daring to see what life could be as a performer who is not performing (for now). I am placing more importance than I ever have placed before on the great sanity that financial stability gives to my life. I am jumping, not knowing where the net or my fellow acrobat’s arms will appear, all the while trusting that, worst comes to worst, I can rely on the wings I’ve built for myself. After all, mine are not made from wax, so I can fly as close to the sun as I’d like.

I will be posting a video in the next week to start off my next audio/visual project that I am working on, and I hope you all will enjoy that video when I post it.

Remember: I am rooting for you all to spread your wings as well, even if you are afraid of another fall. 

I am here if you need help flying.

xxx