Friends, This is the 3rd installment of my Keshet Writings.
I believe I met a goddess walking among us. I was preparing to inhabit my studio space after a long developmental workshop (regarding working within institutions to create touring opportunities) and Keshet founder Shira Greenberg sat next to me.
I had burning questions from my place of intense processing, and was peppering Shira with each one. After many beseeching looks and a certain amount of interpretive hand dancing to illustrate the strength of my feelings, she observed that these questions were important to me and consented to allow me to record the conversation. I transcribe it for you faithfully here:
CELINE: Will you introduce yourself and what you’re working on and also, of course, obviously, what inspires you??? And also what you think that, you know, whole point, of this , you know thing, is, really?
SHIRA: Yeah sure. I’m Shira Greenberg, the Founder and Artistic Director of Keshet. Keshet is the space that we’re in, and it exists to inspire and unite community by fostering unlimited possibilities through dance, mentorship and a creative space for the arts
CELINE: How did you get people to take you seriously? When you were first starting out, I mean?
SHIRA: I just had to have a really thick skin and keep doing things. And sometimes cry.
I had to keep learning. I was always like, “oh, I have to make a one-sheeter” and sometimes I would make them and say, “oops, that’s embarrassing,” but you have to keep making them and trying things.
And also I didn’t really have anything else I wanted to do. there was all this, “you should have a back-up plan if your dream doesn’t work,” because it was very much a dream. It wasn’t a practical, “I’ll be a surgeon” kind of a plan. So there was that concept of “what’s your back-up plan?” and I was like, I dont have one, this is it. This is my plan, this is what I like, this is what I’m going to do.” And so I think that actually was a key element. Because there were plenty of times where it would have been very easy to take the back-up plan, because the process has not been smooth, but it has certainly been adventurous, and interesting, and I would never not want to be doing what I’m doing.
I think just not stopping is how people have taken me seriously. But it takes… you know we’ve had some pretty significant failures. But …. we did survive it, so perseverance is how people have taken me seriously, because now I can say, “we’ve been doing this for 23 years.”
So, gray hair has been helpful. You know, people are like, “how come you don’t dye your hair” and I’m like, “I fucking earned this gray,” I have spent a lot of time with people patting me on the head, like you know, “Oh, little dancey girl, that’s nice. You’re going to make a little thing? A little dancey thing??” and I’m like, [snorts]. There’s a lot of condescending, a lot of stupid things, and you just do it.
CELINE: So, do you have any advice for withstanding the soul-crushing condescension?
SHIRA: Loving what you do. Because it doesn’t matter what anybody else says. They are not the ones who are in your day-to-day life, and if they are, you should move away from them. Just not engage with that.
So I don’t know. It’s a tricky, never ending little thing, to [balance]. But I think, how do you persevere? I don’t know. You just decide how much you are willing to take and how much what your particular goal is worth for you. And for me, my barometer has been, “is this bringing me joy and passion? Is this something I love to do every day? Is this something I want to get up and do every day?”
And if the answer is ever no, then I reassess it. On the parts where it has been really intense and bad and hard. There’ve been times where I’m like, “Okay, well I did it for a while, like, this has been great, do I want to do something else, I could do something else.” and then I think about it, I think through it for a long time, and then I decide if that’s what I want to do or not. So far the answer has never come up that I don’t want to do it, but the comfort in knowing that I could decide that, whenever I feel like it, is really great.
CELINE: I’ve been blessed with so many partnerships this year, but also so many things have fallen apart. My collaboration with Jü Fine Brandy looked like it would be ideal, but they told me that they wanted to support my work and nodded to many of my requests and then expected me to fulfill their vision, they were so surprised that I was different and didn’t even give me an opportunity to explain in a way they could understand. They were rather cruel, actually. They sent me footage that we shot of my vision and they were trash talking me the entire time. They decided that I was a bad investment before I even walked onto the set.
SHIRA: Which I think is the World, other people are going to decide for you on plenty of things.
CELINE: Well?? Has that been your experience?? Because you do seem to know the game, even know that there is a game, which I… I see there must be a game now, but it is so foolish, so unfair, and so petty. With my work I try to call on each audience member to divest from the game, industry, and remember where we come from, nature, but in order to make work, I must take on the industrial, when it feels so heavy, so toxic, so abhorrent.
SHIRA: I think it depends on the situation. There have been plenty of things that we have been cut from or don’t have, or don’t have access to and I think that, we just do a lot of creative problem solving. I think that’s what we do on a regular basis, is just creatively problem solve things. There’s always problems, there’s always a mess, it’s just how you approach it.It’s not a bad mess, it’s just life, right? That’s how business works, that’s how art works, that’s how relationships work, it’s just, things happen, — things don’t go from A to B to C to D, they’re all jumbled up, and so, I think that’s just what, organizationally we’re really good at.. I’m not sure where that came from — maybe it came from moving [back and forth between the US and Israel when I was young and forming my] understanding of how you navigate different cultures, different situations, maybe it comes from being around politics and watching that happen.
It also for sure comes from being a choreographer — how you navigate different types of bodies and how do you solve that and how do you solve, like “we have a show, and we’re going to a space that they said was this size and it’s not that size.” I actually really like that, I enjoy puzzles, and I enjoy fixing problems, and understanding what the problem is, and that gets me jazzed. So for some people, that’s exhausting and that’s frustrating, and I actually really love it. So I think that’s probably a big reason why the persevering part worked for me, that would maybe be the advice — if you don’t like problems, and addressing things that don’t work, then this probably is not the right business or endeavor to go into because that is what it is.
Sometimes there are moments like, “good Lord. That’s enough, that’s enough already.” So for me things that, for many people, feel like something didn’t work, for me actually feels like its working. I just...usually the things that aren’t working are what lead you to the things that do work, right? And I actually take those as the signs, that like, “op, wrong direction,” or like “o-oh wall,” it just kind of bounces me into the right spaces. Rather than being like, “it’s a wall, I’m done.” For me it’s a bounce.
CELINE: So it’s not like when you hit a blockage, you do not experience it, I mean to say, you don’t see it as like, the universe telling you, “that was a bad move.”
SHIRA: No. So here’s a really large example. [After years of work ,] We get our first million dollar grant, to go towards [a permanent building for Keshet], and then there’s this issue with the contract for that grant and the construction site, which resulted in a choice - either stick with our chosen site which we had invested a lot of time and money into, and say no thank you to the million dollar grant; or find another site quickly, and scrap all of previous design plans, yet have that million dollars to actually move towards our goal of having a permanent home .... I went and sat in the dirt, where we were supposed to build and sobbed in my car, and then I was like…”Get it together [slaps each side of her face] Greenberg!” [we laugh] and got back in my car, drove back to Keshet, and went on Craigslist, and found this building in like, ten minutes. And this is by far the best possible version of a home for us. So, had I stopped at any one of the many walls along the way, it would have never happened. So the point is, yeah, there’s challenging and sometimes terrible things that go on, but if you stop at them, then that’s your stopping point versus if you keep using them to bounce you to the next thing.
CELINE: But... I am sensing the perseverance, and I’m perceiving this grace and acceptance through difficulty and your commitment to the Universe, the void, always being on your side, and simply giving you indications to find a more suitable way forward instead of a sign to retreat or give in, and that is just so inspirational, but I’m also curious about how you remind yourself to stay committed to the attitude, you know? How do you stay standing in that place with the tides of failure and the naysaying and doubt sloshing around your ankles??
SHIRA: [...] Coping mechanisms. I don’t know, I just really love it. I really love what I’m doing. I like the adventure of it. I don’t like being financially in a bad place, like that wasn’t fun, but…
Truly the coping mechanism when I’m feeling crappy and awful is just that I have to come to Keshet and watch people. “Oh! Dance people! They’re smiling! Look at the kids, look at the parents, look at the staff, look at what it does. Or I have to run a Maker’s Space, where I see people come in, and have time together to work and to make, and to think. I just, that, it is my coping mechanism, just making space for things to happen.
