Year of transitions
Welcome to the ArtsBound Newsletter. Every Tuesday, I share three thoughts or insights meant to help performing arts students and young professionals flourish in their life and career. Today, we’re covering 1) a personal story about regret, 2) my take on the Gap Year for performing artists, and 3) a snapshot of the transitions that still lie ahead of us.
- 5-minute read -
(NOTE: I started ArtsBound because I believe the world would be a better place with more people living their true calling. If you know a student or young professional who is searching for their niche in the performing arts world, consider forwarding this email to them. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up to receive my newsletter every Tuesday. It's free, and I’ll never share or sell your data.)
1. Why I didn’t travel sooner.
Last week I recorded my first podcast interview with the parents of a performing artist rather than the artist themselves. When I asked them what advice they would give to other parents whose kids have expressed the desire to go into the arts, the mother shared that she believes in having no regrets and encouraging kids to give their passions a shot, even if it doesn’t stick in the long-run.
What a beautiful principle.
When that interview is ready for release, I’ll write a bit more about the parents’ background, as well as regret as a general concept. But for today, I thought I’d share what came up for me when the mother mentioned regret.
When I was in high school, I had dreams of traveling to different countries and living in different places around the US. At different times throughout my late teens and early twenties, I was presented with opportunities to travel - and even encouraged by adults in my life to do so - but I let most of them pass by.
Two such opportunities stick out in my memory:
First, I was encouraged by my parents and some of my classmates to study abroad while in college. I would have loved to, but heard from others that I would be hard-pressed to finish my music education coursework in four years if I did.
In the other instance, when I was getting ready to graduate college, the wife of a professor encouraged me to look into teaching abroad for a few years before looking for a teaching job in the States. Again I would have loved to, but I had a serious girlfriend and, for better or worse, couldn’t imagine being that far away from her for such an extended period of time.
In both cases, I suppressed a deep desire for fear of the unknown.
I don’t have many regrets…
…but not taking those opportunities to travel still haunt me a bit. At the time, I wasn’t prepared to deal with the uncertainty that a year “off course” would present. In retrospect, I see that embracing uncertainty is always an opportunity for growth, and that in both of these instances, I suffered as a result of not doing so.
2. The Gap Year for performing artists
Either year of travel that I did not take in the short story I share above might have acted as a formative ‘Gap Year’ that, if I’m honest, I was ready for other than my fear of uncertainty. As a result, I’ve become an advocate for young people putting space in their educational timeline to allow for intentional exploration, whimsy, maturation, and serendipity to all take place.
I wrote a bit in a previous newsletter about some of the criticisms of the Gap Year concept (which are worth knowing), but for today, I want to share an acrostic I came up with for the sake of planning for an intentional Gap Year.
G is for ‘Go somewhere’ and ‘Get connected’.
When approached the right way, a Gap Year will almost always serve as an initiatory coming-of-age experience. Leaving familiar territory is also a key part of that process, and I also encourage introducing yourself to people who could become influential members of your network. The ‘Go somewhere’ part of this is a bit tricky right now, but with vaccine distribution ramping up, I trust it will get easier throughout the year. Also, don’t forget that “leaving familiar territory” can also be symbolic and/or metaphorical.
A is for ‘Ask questions’ and ‘Answer questions’.
A Gap Year is the perfect time to pose big open-ended questions to yourself and the Universe. Being in unfamiliar space can allow for authentic, unconditioned responses to arise, and uncertainty can often provide fertile ground from which novel ideas spring. You may identify some questions that you seek to answer, almost like goals (e.g. “Does the work of a luthier excite me? ...I’ll spend a year exploring it!). For other questions, the best results come when you allow them to hang unanswered in the space between you and the Universe (e.g. “What would happen if I wasn’t afraid of failing?).
P is for ‘Practice’ and ‘Perform’.
Like the hypothetical “luthier” question above, I highly encourage you to make space in your Gap Year to immerse yourself in the practice of something you think you might like to pursue. This will help you answer some of your questions, as well as give you invaluable experience if you continue down that path. And, because we are performers… Perform! There are loads of Gap Year programs that have formal performance opportunities built in. Community theatre, open mics, busking, etc. can also provide the chance to share your arts with others.
3. More transitions
Many of us understand 2020 - with the pandemic, social unrest, and other culture-changing characteristics - to be a year of transitioning between what was and what is still becoming. Performing artists still have a great number of transitions ahead - the reopening of venues, a return to in-person rehearsals, new collaborations, looking for new work, entering into college, etc.
I especially feel for those who find themselves in the transition between high school or college and whatever-comes-next. Because I believe in the career design process as a way to help guide young performers in these transitions, I’m offering a free interactive webinar for high school performing arts students to introduce them to the career design process and help them ask powerful questions that might just shine some light of the way forward.
If you or someone you know might be interested, learn more by visiting:
artsboundcareerdesign.com/webinar
See you next week!
Lee
PS - I started ArtsBound because I believe the world would be a better place with more people living their true calling. If you know a student or young professional who is searching for their niche in the performing arts world, consider forwarding this email to them. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up to receive my newsletter every Tuesday. It's free, and I’ll never share or sell your data.