| Letting Go, Moving On |
Dear Friends and Supporters,
I hope that this newsletter finds you in good health and joyful spirits as we enter a new year. My own state of being for the past year can be summed up in one word, “hectic” and as we enter the new year and begin preparations for our 30th year as Andrew Jannetti & Dancers I don’t see that state of being changing.
One thing that will alleviate my ”hecticness” is that I have officially graduated from the Master’s program at NYU with a 4.0 GPA. This semester was particularly challenging because in addition to writing my thesis I was working 4 jobs and traveling all over NYC from Manhattan, to Brooklyn, to Queens. Needless to say I barely slept and even pulled an all-nighter (my first since my college days). One of my jobs is with the NYC Department of Education as a dance instructor in an elementary school in Whitestone, Queens, which is going fantastically well and is a much welcome island of security in an otherwise tumultuous and stormy sea.
As many of you know the past 2 years have been nothing but one upheaval after another. After a disappointing interview process last September, I was able to piece together a number of part time jobs only to have the majority of them fall apart by mid March. The one that was the greatest loss to me personally was the acquisition of the Printing House by Equinox and the resulting loss of classes that I had been teaching for over 20 years and more importantly the loss of a real community of exercise enthusiasts who appreciated and understood the sophistication that I brought to their daily exercise routines. You know who you are, thank you for being there all these years. After many futile attempts to try and get those classes going elsewhere in the neighborhood I decided it was best to let it go and move on. I stayed on at Equinox as a personal trainer until the demands that they were putting on my time was interfering with other more viable work. Again I decided to let it go.
Which brings me to my latest round of having to let go. This year for the first time in 19 years I have had to let go of our Annual Holiday Fundraiser. The reasons for this are myriad and include: not only the time, organization and stress factors but the loss of yet another space that seemed perfect for this event. So it is with much angst and sadness that we decided it best to take a break from this year’s event and look to 2012, celebrating my graduation and the beginning of our 30th year of “dancemaking.” As we begin to focus on this next year we will be restructuring administratively and welcoming new dancers into the company as we prepare for a 30th year celebration and performance event. What that will look like is still being bantered around. Keep a lookout for more information on this in the coming months.
Despite having to let go of this year’s Holiday Fundraiser, I am very positive about the future. I have a Masters for the New Year, my job in Whitestone is going very well, my work at Brooklyn Arts Exchange is more satisfying than ever and this year I did a co-presentation at the National Dance Education Organization on the topic of Late Adulthood and Implications for the Dance Educator, which we are looking to expand upon and develop further. Dance Teacher magazine just interviewed me for an article on this topic. As soon as I know when it is coming out I will let you all know. In addition, one of my dances was presented at the NYU Masters concert in November at the Frederick Lowes Theater on West 4th street.
Yet again there seem to be a lot of changes and upheaval in the air and as always we never know how they will affect us or where they will lead us. No matter how well planned or thought out our journey is, does it really ever end where we wanted, intended, or hoped for it to. I would like to leave you with a number of sayings that have guided me through life and helped to keep me focused on what really matters, especially these past few years.
"When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take that step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen: There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught how to fly." Unknown
You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust.
You were born with ideals and dreams.
You were born with greatness.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don't.
You have wings. Learn to use them, and fly.
Rumi
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.“ Aristotle
I couldn’t have said it better myself,
As always,
Andrew