I posted my two favourite quotes from Blood Memory on this site in March 2010. Here are two more. They are definately words to live up to, and very inspiring.

* * * * *

My first day of teaching is over. I enjoy teaching even though the classes here are too large for anything except the most elementary attempt at communication. There were about 60 in the class today . . . in each class I should say. They move well but there is such an emptiness of meaning or real intention . . . it is a kind of bleakness of spirit where there should be some urgency and deep foundation of meaning no matter how faulty the technique may be. There seems to be a desire to dance, to move well, even to say something with it but there seems to be no glimpse of the primary reason why dance is or why it has to be done or why they are doing what they are doing . . . there is such a fundamental waste of livingness at the root of it all and that should be the root if anything is. Perhaps I expect too much but it seems they start with the result of dancing rather than the cause. All I can do in these five days is to make them a little more aware through shock and an attempt at building and progression. But then again it will be a painful experience if they get it at all and perhaps it is better and kinder to let them sleep as they are now . . . to employ what i call the “rocking chair” method of dancing . . . comfortable, rhythmic, monotonous, safe . . . Perhaps they should never leave the chair to stir those depths of the shadowy pool near which they rock their lives away.

I think I never want them to be on fire if it is so painful for them as it is for me. I wonder how long one can stay on fire. It is a curious fire. Perhaps it is good for Joan. I wonder. At least I think I know what it does mean to burn slowly from within . . . to feel so possessed by flame as to be infinitely hot and about to disintegrate into an ash at any instant. It may be very beautiful to watch.”

(pg 187)

* * * * *

I have said to many children, “Do what you are doing and be excited about what you are doing. Be the best in your world by what you do and love it.” I always say have a great love for what you are doing. Go to great lengths, good and bad, to do your absolute best. The audience will understand that. The audience is your judge and your only reality. I am not a romantic. I believe you must have a demonic technique and as Louis said, “Go at your audience at times with a whip.” In those early days a favourite of mine, the critic Stark Young, said to a friend, “Must I join you at Martha’s dance concert tonight? All that percussive angular movement — I am so afraid she’ll give birth to a cube.”

I want all of my students and all of my dancers to be aware of the poignancy of life at that moment. I would like to feel that I had, in some way, given them the gift of themselves.”

(pg 267)

from http://www.notstraight.com/artists/transgender/nina_arsenault.asp

Notstraight: What was the first LGTB movie you watched?
Nina Arsenault: The first LGBT I saw was Paris with Burning in a double bill with Madonna’s Truth or Dare

Notstraight: What is your favorite genre for movies?
Nina Arsenault: I like all types of film as long as they are well made.

Notstraight: What is your favorite LGTB movie?
Nina Arsenault: All About Eve

Notstraight: What is your favorite Hetrosexual movie?
Nina Arsenault: Blade Runner

Notstraight: If you could have a luncheon with any two people (real of fictitious/ from any time period, dead or alive), which two people would you choose?
Nina Arsenault: Madonna and Martha Graham. I’d like to get a sense of what fulfilled each woman in her life. What, if any, were their regrets? Also, how they see their greatest strengths?

Notstraight: Which is your favorite time of the day, are you a morning person or a night person?
Nina Arsenault: I am naturally nocturnal.

Notstraight: What’s your favorite song of the moment?
Nina Arsenault: I’m really into Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt.

Notstraight: What’s your favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon?
Nina Arsenault: Work Out

Notstraight: Are you a cat or a dog lover?
Nina Arsenault: I love cats, and sometimes wish I could be one.

Notstraight: Do you have a pet/s?
Nina Arsenault: Nope, they smell and mess up my stuff.

Notstraight: Do you like to sing in the shower?
Nina Arsenault: Yes, sometimes I just hum.

Notstraight: What was your first tattoo or piercing and where is it? What does it stand for?
Nina Arsenault: The first tattoo I got was an Eye of Ra behind my left ear. It think it stands for vision.

Notstraight: What was the first film/play you acted in?
Nina Arsenault: I was Santa Claus in my kindergarten play.

Notstraight: Do you like to sing karaoke?
Nina Arsenault: I did it once and loved it.

Notstraight: Would you rather have the power to be invisible or the power to read minds?
Nina Arsenault: I’d rather be able to be invisible.

Notstraight: Do you like black and white movies? Why or why not?
Nina Arsenault: Yes, I do. Black and white transforms the visual world into monochrome and therefore abstracts it. We lose the vividness of a coloured world, but what is emphasized is gradient shading.

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. …No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

“I believe we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.”

CLICK ON PICS BELOW TO ENLARGE.