Weighting on Mr. Fagan

"Spiritual teachers have raised the vibrational frequency of their daily lives, to the point where they're able to provide inspiration to others merely by their presence, and this is the standard to which you need to inspire." ~Wayne Dyer

Providing inspiration to other simply by being near them...this is something that I experienced when I met Garth Fagan. It's kind of weird. As an artist, you often have someone to whom you aspire to be like, or someone whose work you aspire to simulate/imitate. I remember watching an Alvin Ailey performance and thinking: "Dear God, please make me that good!" When I met Mr. Fagan I thought, "Dear God, please make me that influential, that creative, that DRIVEN!" I had already been a part of the Dance Department after being coerced into auditioning. So of course I thought that I would IMMEDIATELY meet this choreographic genius. I mean, isn't this what my HS dance teacher sent me here for? Geez!

It was actually years before I would actually see Mr. Fagan on the campus and it would be moths after that sighting that I would be blessed with an opportunity to take his class. I cannot tell you how AMAZING this whole thing was. He arrived for the first day of class in his jumpsuit and this weird hat and I thought: "See, only a TRUE artistic genius could wear a hat like that andget away with it!" I felt like I was in the prescene of royalty. I mean, in the Rochester dance community I was taking class with the King of everything PHENOMENALLY dance and culture.

I was shocked (sad really) when he did not return to class until we were close to taking our midterm. Woah!

The class had been taught by a small contingency of the company and they were FLAWLESS. NO, seriously, they were flawless. It was AMAZING to see them move, it was like watching paint being pured from one can into the next, over and over and over again. And they could count like nothing I had ever seen/heard in my life. There is no such thing as even counting in Fagan dance. There are only the oddities of 7's and 5's and sometimes a 1 to throw you into an anxiety filled frenzy of thoughts and limbs. I was in HEAVEN! I mean, I was being challenged to think, feel and see all at once. It was like coming home! Although I felt that way, I also remember thinking that he would never accept me into his company because all of his dancers were slim and tall. I was neither of those things, but I loved to dance and NOTHING was going to change that.

So when he came into the studio, unannounced as he often did, I almost threw up! I tried to play it cool, as did every other student, but it was impossible to concentrate on the combination. It was especialy difficult becasue PJ was adding movement and even more bizarre counts! "Why, oh why did he have to show up today?!" He watched silently with his eyes and sometimes he wuld whisper into the ear of one of the company members and we all hoped he was talking about us just as we were praying he wasn't. Did he think we were good, bad, sad, without hope? What was he thinking? Looking back on all the times he entered the studio (few, but memorable), I don't think I ever learned what he was thinking. Well, actually I think that maybe he was looking for that raw talent that he could shape into flawless perfection. And when he was done shaping and molding, he would pour that flawless perfection onto the performance stage.

Once, after class he said: "Good job Wy."

Garth Fagan raises the vibrational frequency of dance and life, he inspires, simply by being present in the moment. Thank God for that!