BWW Blog: Kathryn Mowat Murphy - Being Fired

Welcome back.

Hands up--who's been fired? Ok-- a) if your hand did not got up, then you're missing out on some wonderful lessons and b} I don't believe you. Everyone at some point, somewhere, has been fired, even if you were five and it was from your best friend's lemonade stand (true story). I always find it amusing that people think this is always a bad thing. I went on to create my own peach punch stand, and was far more successful.

Of course, if you're fired from every job you have, it's time to take a look at yourself. If it's due to circumstance beyond your control, then accept it as the good ole universe changing your course for the better. Just ask Steve Jobs--fired from his own company no less.

Why I am bringing this up? Well, I had to let one of my dancers go. It was a mutual agreement because things were just not working out. Our energies were not matching up-like my last marriage. But this time I followed instinct, and my instinct told me I should let this person go. Like I said, it was not easy, but I know my dancer will flourish with another choreographer.

This brings me to the lesson of the week.

Once you are in a management position, you have to look at the big picture and see what is best for the entire project.

As single individuals in this business, we never do that. It's all about why didn't I get this and why was I not included in this. Now I see what all these directors, producers and casting agents really do. I see it very clearly.

I am on week two of my project, and I now have to restructure due to losing a body. We are in rehearsal and bam! One of my dancers is hurt and can barely bend his arm. I am devastated since I don't want to be responsible for anyone being injured. I feel like I am doomed and will never get this piece finished. After taking care of the dancer with ice and having him sit and rest, I stand in the middle of the studio with my head down, trying to figure out what to do now. This is uncharted territory. Then visions of the choreographers I have worked with in the past come into my head. What would Annie or Wayne or Graciele do? Well, what they wouldn't do is stand in the middle of a studio with their heads down doing nothing. We just have to continue and somehow manage to get to the end of rehearsal with my injured dancer trying his best to do what he can.

I go home and try and sleep on what has happened. Before rehearsals I have slight anxiety attacks, as I still don't know if what I am doing is any good. Now, with an injured dancer, I feel like I am hanging on by a thread. My body aches, not because I am sore from dancing, but purely through stress and being tense 24 hours a day. Does anyone else who choreographs or directs go through this?

I pray the dancer will be ok. We are having about two rehearsals a week, and, so far, I think we have had one with everyone there. Not an easy task to choreograph on missing bodies. In this business, we all have to do so much to maintain our simple survival life in New York. So I get why everyone can't show up to every rehearsal. That being said, it still doesn't make the process any easier.

I worry if this injured dancer will be able to carry on. I ask him, but he can't be 100 percent sure. What do I do? I ask two people whose opinions I respect. They both respond emphatically: get rid of him.

I still can't decide, and so we have another rehearsal. I re choreograph the sections, and, quite frankly, I like them, so a reprieve is in order. I have my answer.

The second lesson I have learned now is: Take everything that goes wrong as a direction change and a challenge to create something considerably more interesting.

I remember, years ago, at the New Zealand school of Dance, when we had to choreograph a short one minute piece, but without the use of one sense, and we had to make sure that it was obvious which sense it was. I had smell, of course! Why would I choose that? It's a challenge? No, because all the other senses were chosen, so I was left with smell. It turned out I had to use more of my acting skills than my dance abilities, which then showed my teacher that I wasn't just a dancer, setting me on a slightly wider path to pursue. See, it all works out.

Oh, and on a completely separate note, I want to mention an experience that decreased my stress levels this weekend. I saw the Tisch New Theatres production of West Side Story. Two people to watch out for: director, Thomas Daniel Valls, and a young fellow named Jarrad Green, who played Tony. Two talents you will be hearing about sooner than later. Yes, you read it here. ...

Stay tuned.

Photo Credit: Bree Moon

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