"...there is an erroneous message, I think, out there that art and the process of creating is very, very healing and therapeutic. And I don’t think it is. I think it’s cathartic. It moves energy. But there are certain songs, one of which is 'You Oughta Know,' where I have sung that song countless times onstage, and if I were to run into that person right now, I would feel horrified." --Alanis Morissette, interviewed by Tami Simon on Sounds True, 2014*

This quote really caught my attention when I first heard it.  It was an interesting thought.  The idea that art is healing and therapeutic, in and of itself, is something that I have taken as truth for a long time. Not only that, I hear my colleagues say it over and over again.  So when I hear a respected artist say the complete opposite, I have to sit up and take notice.

So I listened to the interview repeatedly to see if I could get the gist of what she was saying.  Then, while in my exploration, I came across an interview of Alanis by Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday where Alanis made this claim again:

"I actually think that art itself is cathartic, but it's not healing.  I thought that I could get away with writing these songs and it would absolve me and redeem and clean up, but after having sung, 'You Oughta Know' night, after night, after night, if I ran into that person I would have likely been catapulted right back to feeling uncomfortably terrified and awkward.  So it showed me that the process is cathartic, of creating and moving energy, and it can kick start, it can be a catalyst to investigate, but unless there's an actual relationship going on...there [is] not a lot of healing afforded".

Aha!  This was interesting and juicy.  I began to think about my own process.  In a recent school assembly, a child asked what inspired me during my dances.  I explained that there were various factors:  the lyrics of the song, the people I'm working with, but also my mood.  I told her that when I was in a happy mood, it was fun to dance the happy dances, but that when I'm sad or angry, it's just as fun to dance the sad or angry dances.  Why?  Because it's cathartic.  After having a particularly difficult week, maybe because I wasn't feeling well or because I had had an argument with someone, I would get an amazing release from dancing out my anger onstage.  It usually makes for a better performance too, when you channel that real energy and let it move you.  I always feel uplifted afterwards.

This is where we get the idea that art is healing--this feeling of catharsis when we've moved that energy through us, especially if it has moved something in our audience as well.  They get that catharsis too and in that moment, we are in relationship.  So yes, that feels healing.

However, I can admit that I have spent years dancing out the anger over people or situations that I have not forgiven.  Although I do feel like I've moved that anger through me and I have felt relief from doing so, I know full well that I have not healed that anger.  It rears its ugly head over and over again, and although it often feels good to use it for my dancing, it eventually gets old, and it most certainly doesn't feel good when it shows up in the middle of my every day life.  The only times I feel that I have actually healed my anger are when I have done the real work of forgiveness--when I have sat for hours and hours in meditation, with the intent to release that anger and forgive, and even more importantly, when I have actually done the work of having the conversation, meeting that person heart to heart, acknowledging my responsibility, and forgiving and letting go.

So yes, I guess Alanis has a point.  In the interview with Simon, she goes on to define healing as "the return to the original wholeness and original truth of what we are—that innate goodness".  In this definition, healing implies that we no longer see ourselves as right and others wrong.  We just see ourselves as one in the same, part of a greater whole, equally capable of being both right and wrong.  When I think about a lot of the professional relationships over the years, both mine and others I have witnessed, then I have to agree with Alanis. Our art has served as catharsis and part of a healing process, but not the healing itself.

So what do we do?  We continue to move our energy through our art and use it as part of our therapy, but we need to do the other work.  We need to do the work that allows us to see ourselves in the other and the other in us.  The artists that I know who seem the happiest overall are those who have done this in some way, whether it be through meditation, therapy, prayer, service to others, or a combination of all these.  Remember, art should bring people together.  That union is where the real healing begins.

*The link to the Tami Simon interview can be found here: http://www.soundstrue.com/store/weeklywisdom/?page=single&category=IATE&episode=9909

You can watch the Oprah Winfrey interview here: 

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I think what Alanis said makes for an interesting dialogue among artists.  What do you think about Alanis's point about catharsis vs. healing?  Do you agree or disagree?  I would love to hear your thoughts in the Comments section below.

The other night at one of our shows, a man came up to the guitarist and me to thank us for our performance.  He proceeded to pull out a funeral program and told us that he had just buried his mother-in-law and was hoping we could play something that could be a celebration for someone who has passed.  We took a moment and then the guitarist started playing Lo Bueno y Lo Malo (The Good and the Bad) by Ray Heredia.  The song is about how he is tired of all the sadness and cruelty in the world, but also reminds himself that this precious life is slipping away.  It was a truly beautiful moment and besides it being a celebration for this man's loved one, I felt like we were celebrating life and the opportunity to do what we love for a living and share it with the world. I also feel like this man shared a gift with us.  He made me feel like my grandmother was speaking to me since I've been recently looking at using Flamenco for some sort of bereavement work. I am grateful this man let us in on a little piece of his life, that  his request inspired music, and I hope we in turn inspired him to keep celebrating the beauty of all we share in this world.  Whatever your song is, please share it.

Here I'll share  Duquende and Tomatito's cover of the song, that was shared by someone on You Tube.  I think the majority of the song is beautiful.  To be honest, I could do without the 80s-style sax solo in the middle, but I share it anyway, cos like the song implies, you must "take the good with the bad".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCYb0DuZ0pc

I last wrote an entry in May.  You may wonder, why the gap?  Although, I'm sure the title gives it away.  My maternal grandmother, Mercedes Teodora Aymerích, passed away on May 31 at the age of 89.  My daily existence has not been the same since.  Shortly after, her remains were flown out from Florida and my parents soon followed, as she had made her arrangements here in Los Angeles.  During that week, I kind of took the reins of the arrangements as I am the older sibling and my parents are not native English speakers and feel more confident letting me handle things.  It's interesting because I had been giving a lot of thought to death and grief prior to that.  I've given a lot of thought to both topics most of my life.  I had an infant brother who passed away when I was five years old.  That death has colored much of how I see the world.  Recently, I felt a calling, like maybe I could use Flamenco to help people process their emotions, particularly grief.  I find Flamenco to be so transformational and empowering because the lyrics and the feeling force you to face some of the strongest and hardest emotions we experience in life.  There are many lyrics about death and grief and for some reason, I had recently been contemplating them quite thoroughly.

Then my grandmother passed away and the theory got put into practice.  I suddenly found myself, not only handling funeral arrangements and giving a eulogy, but I also had to gig and sub my friend's classes for six weeks.  I was dancing in some capacity six to seven nights a week, performing and teaching in a world where now my only grandparent was finally gone.  I felt like I had to postpone my grieving because so many responsibilities made "life go on" even though some of it felt like someone else's life since I was teaching someone else's classes.  Not only that, a week after my grandmother was interred in the mausoleum, we buried my sister-in-law's grandfather.  Two weeks after that, we buried my husband's cousins' grandmother.  Suddenly it was as if the universe wanted to get me very acquainted with death and grief, not just my own, but the grief of others.  I listened and watched as tears, anger, secrets, and shock permeated everyone and everything around me.  There were moments of laughter too.  We should be mad about the tall, thin, pale and ghoulish-looking mortician who cracked an "I'm burning" joke to the priest who accidentally sprinkled some holy water on him, but it was so absurd, it was kind of a relief.  Worse was the funeral saleswoman, who had sold my grandmother the arrangements, passing out her marketing materials and bragging "I did this" as soon as the funeral was over.  And yet, in all that grief, the nonsense of such a vulgar act didn't really affect us.  It was just cause for cynical laughter.

The sweetness came in seeing family operating in a new manner.  Being more honest and remembering to say "I love you" or "How are you?" more often.  Sweetness came in not "sweating the small stuff".  The sweetness came in teaching class.  A slow arm warm-up, executed Tai Chi style, brings everyone to the present.  A "puzzle" of a heel-work step becomes a practice in snapping you back out of your mind and into life.  The joy of seeing students grasp something they didn't know just six weeks before, reminds you that life is lived for each other.  After living through so many deaths, our families celebrated my sister-in-law's birthday and a baby shower for my other sister-in-law.  Life goes on and in cycles of birth and death and in that joy and grief we meet, we find each other.  That is the sweetness.  Flamenco reminds me of it every day. 

Letra de Soleá:
"Soy piedra y perdí mi centro
y me arrojaron al mar
y al cabo de tanto tiempo
ahy mi centro vine a encontrar."

Translation of Soleá verse:

"I am stone and I lost my center,
and I got tossed out to sea,
and after a good length of time,
there (the sea) is where I found my center".