Erin Anastasia
-Dance-
Erin is someone I don’t know ultra well but from the few times I’ve been able to speak with her, I’ve seen very clearly she just oozes grace. She might disagree with me, but I find that dancers have an incredible way of moving through air like fish move through water. It just comes so naturally to them. Well, more naturally then the clumpy way I get around.
I was interviewing her partner Josh on their balcony when I kind of pressured her into telling me about her experience before she had to head off to teach a dance class. Wait, dance studios are open? Tell me all about THAT.
Interviewed 5.28.20
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: How are you doing?
Erin: For the first time, this morning, I thought to myself, "Erin, have you asked how you're feeling?" I haven't asked myself how I was feeling. So then I felt I needed to write down all the things I was feeling because I was like, "Oh, it's a lot of things." I'm feeling stuck and aggravated, critical of myself and people around me. I'm doing okay. I think that feeling and doing are two different things. The reason, I noticed, that I haven't asked myself how I was feeling is because I realized how many things I had been doing, like just around the house, just like how many more times can I sweep the floor? Or how many times a day am I going to wipe the same counter down? It becomes monotonous, but it fills the time. And so I'm doing a lot, but it's a lot of what feels like nothing. I think about cocooning. I think about this time as a cocoon. I think of it as a gestation period. I know a lot of folks are doing a lot right now with their art and a lot of folks are doing nothing with their art. I'm not doing anything with my art right now. I'm still teaching dance. I'm still associated with it in that way, and I'm still speaking that language and moving through it inside my body day-to-day with my students. Everything else has kind of been put on pause and just sort of muted.
Casey: How is it finding the motivation to continue to teach dance when you don't feel motivated to create on your own?
Erin: Teaching dance digitally through a camera—they are receiving it through a camera—we're having an exchange that is based from its birth as an art form on connection and on togetherness. Having that isolation and that separation has exacerbated my anxiety about this entire pandemic. But it has also given me something to look forward to and fret about—something to fret about other than case counts or what the governor has decided to do. So in a way, it's tethered me to routine in a way that is helpful for my mental health. And being able, with some of my studios, to start to go back in with a couple of students at a time and be in a room with them, their body is there, my body is there, and to have that exchange again has been—it's literally like a drug.
Casey: Have you found any habits or sacred places, or any sort of sacred rituals that are getting you through, but also that you think you might take into the post-quarantine world?
Erin: Taking a bath. So taking a bath has not really been a part of my life for a couple of years. It had been at one time. I was trying to incorporate that as more of like a ritual sacred space and sort of a womb space to return to when I needed it, and I found through this isolation process a return to that womb space, and returned to sort of this sacred ritual bath every—I would say I do it once a week. There's a lot of stuff that comes up, but I feel like water is really tied to emotions and tied to stuff that stays kind of stagnant deep down inside of us. It kind of allows that to dry out and flow into the water, and I can just be fully present. It helps me to be embodied in my body, and that's important. I think I get really bogged down throughout the week in my head just with the nature of existing right now.
Casey: Is there anything that's maybe not tied to your creative life that you miss?
Erin: I don't know if there will ever be a going back to this, but being able to stand next to people in close proximity and not be highly aware of proximity, to be able to grab someone's arm and not feel like, "Oh, shit, I just made contact with them and I don't know if I'm a carrier, I don't know they're a carrier," that sort of thing. Just general human closeness in public spaces. I think there have been times in my life where I'm going through Kroger and I'm having an anxious day and just being really close to someone in the checkout line—if they have a good vibration, good energy—it's like that is comforting. And now I feel like I can't be standing close to anyone, feel anyone's energy without panicking a little bit or wondering if I'm in danger. And so I would love to get back to a place where proximity to another human doesn't feel dangerous or risky.
Casey: Do you think we'll get there?
Erin: I have no idea. A lot of people have speculated that, you know, hugging is going to become a thing of the past, you know, like hugging friends upon meeting. And I'm just like, "That's crazy." I can't really wrap my mind around that. So I want to say no.
Casey: What do you think you're going to be able to look back and take away from this chapter in not only the world's life, but in your personal life?
Erin: I think a takeaway for me is an affirmation that your worth as a human being, or as an artist even, is not tied to your productivity, is not tied to your output, and that you have worth because you exist, because you're here. And that had been coming up a little bit for me in the last eight months and then just this experience has totally affirmed that over-productivity and an economy that is based on work, work, work and output is just a patriarchal capitalist mentality that we've adopted for the last couple centuries, and it's outdated and we don't need it anymore, and we can thrive and survive and make it through. This is sort of our portal into a world that we can imagine where we get to rest when we need to, that we can work from home if we need to. You know, perhaps mental health will be a greater factor in sick leave or whatever for employers moving forward with their employees. I don't know but I think the biggest takeaway for me is just an affirmation that rest is a part of productivity. Rest is stepping back, and doing nothing is a part of doing something, sometimes.
