Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hello. Hello I'm Dana Wilson, and this is Words That Move Me.
[00:00:06] I move people.
[00:00:07] I choreograph movies, music videos, and TV shows. I dance for pop stars. I coach some really awesome people.
[00:00:14] But what I truly love is to.
[00:00:17] Learn, share, and inspire clarity and confidence in my fellow movers and shakers. So if you are navigating a creative career or simply want to live a little more funky and free, then settle.
[00:00:30] In because this is for you. Holy freaking actual smokes. Hi. This is Dana and this is words that move me. This is the first episode of our new video plus audio format.
[00:00:45] Context for anyone who might be visiting. For the first visiting, I don't know, context for anybody that might be here for the first time. I started a podcast in the last couple of weeks of 2019 and have released podcast episodes every single week since then, except for the last twelve weeks. Decided to take a little break, a well earned break after 182 episodes. And now I'm back.
[00:01:10] I created this podcast to be about dance and choreography for dancers and choreographers. But spoiler alert, turns out this podcast is for all human beings that have creative impulses, which I think is todos personas.
[00:01:28] Todas personas?
[00:01:30] I don't speak Spanish, but I do show up and speak on a microphone and sometimes want to kick myself for it.
[00:01:38] But this habit that I made three, four, how many math years ago is really with me every single day of my break. I thought about it, and I'm really, really excited to be back. Before we get into any new guests or new lessons, though, I want to catch you up on some of the things that I have learned since then.
[00:02:00] But first, we're going to do Wins.
[00:02:03] I start every podcast with Wins. A wins segment. This is actually an awesome gift that I learned from my acting teacher, Gary Imhoff, who is a podcast guest. Also, we'll link to his episode in the show notes and below.
[00:02:18] Gary Imhoff arguably has changed my dancing.
[00:02:23] As much or more than most of my dance teachers.
[00:02:27] This person really helped me unlock a me ness, a knowingness of me, a lot of clarity, a lot of confidence in myself and in my craft.
[00:02:38] And when I encounter creators in the world, usually those are the two things people are looking for, is clarity and confidence. So that is what this podcast is, is. Oh, Gary.
[00:02:49] That's right. I've got it.
[00:02:51] Gary starts his class off with Wins because he believes that this life, in the entertainment industry, the selling of creative services, can be really taxing. And without celebrating along the way, you might have a shorter journey.
So, to extend our creative journey, we celebrate Wins first and frequently.
[00:03:16] Today, I am celebrating this, us being here.
[00:03:22] And I would like to give a very, very big and important thank you to the one and only Riley Higgins, who is sitting camera right, who helped me with this setup.
[00:03:32] I also want to thank Josh Bergner for his technical and lighting advice and assistance. I want to thank Daniel Reetz for the lens that you are seeing me through and the lens that he sees me through as well.
[00:03:47] And let's see, Oh, a big thank you to the little love pup that's sitting down there. If you have been listening to this podcast for a while, y'all you know that Becoming a Dog Mom has been on my list of things to do.
[00:04:04] For a hot minute. We should actually go back and find the first episode that I said it.
[00:04:11] It was my win one time. I don't know how we're going to find this. One of my wins. Was I'm becoming a dog, mom. I remember it. I was nannying somebody's dog or it was like I was like, I'm taking steps towards having a dog and holy actual shit balls, I'm a dog mom. This is my dog wrist roll. We call her Rizz for short. Shout out Ricky Ubeda for that classic nickname. He gifted the nickname. She's a black pug. She's four years old. She's a rescue from wags and walks. And her tail is a perfect curl that looks a lot like a perfect wrist roll. So this is wrist roll my dog. This is my video audio podcast. Soon I'm just going to be calling it a podcast because I'm very aware that people have podcasts that are also on film. Who even am I?
[00:04:59] I'll tell you what, I've been talking a lot today.
[00:05:02] The eloquence. Trust me. Trust me.
[00:05:04] First comers, first timers. Oh, Lord.
[00:05:07] I'm usually more eloquent than this, but, here we are and we're live.
[00:05:13] We're not live, but I don't plan on editing this. I just wanted to be as real as possible. Riley is cracking up. You can be out loud.
[00:05:21] We know you're here.
[00:05:23] Where was I? Wins. Words that Move Me, Rizz, my life, and my friends who have helped me get this far.
[00:05:32] A weekly podcast is no small task, but it helped me to learn myself.
[00:05:39] And it was rewarding in a way that made me very excited to come back. So I'm glad to be back.
[00:05:45] That's my win. Now you go, what's going well in your world?
[00:05:51] I really do want you to say, like I want you to say it out loud or like, write it down. Maybe tell somebody if you're with somebody, maybe hit pause and do a little exchange if you're listening to this with someone. But Gary is right.
You take too many punches out there to not celebrate your victories. So please tell me what's going well in your world.
[00:06:11] And you know what?
[00:06:12] If you would like to actually tell me, drop those wins in the comments here on YouTube and or visit us on Words That Move Me podcast on Instagram. I would love to hear your wins. I love to champion all my movers and shakers out there.
[wins music]
Okay, without any further ado, we're going to get into it. Three lessons that I've learned since the break.
[00:06:45] The first one is patience with a sidecar of attention to detail.
[00:06:52] I picked up Rizz from Wags and Walks nine days ago now on a seven day trial, because when I met her, she was a little, dare I say, cold, as in not into me.
[00:07:07] And I was offended.
You have your idea of, like or you hear stories of when people get a dog, they're like, I just knew from the first 2nd we met, she came up to me, she sat on my lap, whatever. Stories like that. That was not what happened with Riz. And when I asked the foster and.
[00:07:23] The person working at the rescue, they said, you know what? She's really not like that. She's usually really loving and very chill, and she was a little skittish, and she was definitely not loving on me. And they said that the room that she and I met in is where she got her last shots, and so that maybe she was just on edge because of that. And they offered me to take her home. They said, Would you like to bring her home for seven days for a trial? And I was like, that's an option. I will always take a dog home for seven days for a trial. Let's go. That evening pretty quickly after arriving at home, you can guess what happened.
[00:08:00] There's a large pee for such a small dog and also a poo just moments later, because I couldn't take a hint, but it's like, I have to go to the bathroom. But it really felt like her whole objective was like, what's the most expensive thing in here? Oh, a peloton. You have a pellet? I'm going to pee on that. So she went and peed on the peloton and then pooped around the corner.
[00:08:22] A little bit later.
[00:08:23] And I was like, she's finding her new home.
[00:08:25] She's marking her spot, whatever that happened.
[00:08:28] The pee part, she became quite good at going number two outside, but the pee part happened every single day. All pees for the next three days.
[00:08:39] There were zero pees outside.
[00:08:41] Y'all you hear me talking about you, don't you?
[00:08:44] Oh, she's being bashful. She buried. She hid her head. She's ashamed. I did not mean to throw shame on you, my friend, okay?
[00:08:52] She's just snoozing. That's me putting shame on her. Putting shame on me.
[00:08:55] Okay, wait.
[00:08:56] Meta shame all the way down. I talked to a couple of trainers. I talked to the person at the rescue. I was really thinking, like, I can't, with my schedule, be a person who has a dog that only pees inside.
[00:09:12] And it was funny. When the agent wrote me back in this email, she said, I understand that Riz is choosing to pee inside. And I was like, oh, that's so interesting that you think she's choosing this like as punishment for me.
[00:09:25] Anyways, come to find out, just as I was auditioning her, she was auditioning me. And I was not doing very good at this audition, wasn't paying attention to her schedule. I was trying to pay attention to her body language. And I would catch her start to pee.
[00:09:42] I know what that looks like.
[00:09:44] And as soon as my hot little hands got around her body full pee.
[00:09:48] And did she stop?
[00:09:49] No. Did I pick her up? Yes.
[00:09:52] Was there pee all over? Yeah, 100%.
[00:09:55] Anyways, I learned that I wasn't giving her enough time outside. I wasn't paying attention to the times of day at which she peed inside, which for the record, was very consistent. Once I started writing these things down, I learned so Riz has put me on a schedule, which for the record, begins around five in the morning, six if we're lucky. I learned Riz's schedule and I learned to spend a little bit more time with her outside.
[00:10:19] As it turns out.
[00:10:22] We need time to feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable enough to pull our pants down and piss and shit. Like dog lessons are life lessons, I say that.
[00:10:35] Dance lessons are life lessons. That's true, but also so are dog lessons. It takes me a while to be comfortable enough in a class or in an audition room or with a choreographer before I feel like I can truly be vulnerable. And is there anything more vulnerable than relieving yourself outdoors in the open, in the wilderness? Come on. With like new people around and stuff. So anyways, I'm proud of Rizz for becoming a little girl who for the past four days or five yeah, it must be four exclusively going potty outside.
[00:11:11] No pees or poo's indoors for four days.
[00:11:14] This is my dog, y'all, we're tight.
[00:11:16] Oh, she's making sleep sounds.
[00:11:18] I can't handle it. I know you can't hear it yet.
[00:11:21] But I do plan on putting a Snore score in the bottom of the video so we can all keep track on how often Rizz's snores will make their way onto the podcast. I'm very excited about that. Oh, I also have to say thank you to my new friend Rotem, who lives up the street. I have a new dog, mom friend, and Rizz made very fast friends out of Libby, and it's no pun intended, they run fast for a small dog who has.
[00:11:49] What is it called, impeded.
[00:11:53] Modified breathing, given a very, very short septum because obviously pug, she can run real fast. She's very athletic.
[00:12:02] Love you, Riz.
[00:12:03] That is number one thing that I have learned is patience and attention to detail, especially when it comes to schedule and pups, which turns out are not that different than humans.
[00:12:14] Okay, moving right along the level up, y'all, the decision to turn what was usually, I mean, not 50% of the time, but probably 35% of the time, a solo episode. Me standing in front of my closet. Or the other percentage of the time me in a zoom like software with a guest going from that into a three camera setup also leveled up my microphones. I don't know if you could tell, no offense, Blue, yeti you were great. I think I've 25 x the amount of work that goes into pre recording, and I have certainly 25 x or more the work that will go into the back end. Riley and I have been planning this move. I've had many key players in my life really encourage this move, and the thought that helped me commit to it fully was that I strongly believe dancers.
[00:13:13] Who are usually seen. With movement as their voice, should not be actually voiceless.
[00:13:22] I love sharing the mic with dancers.
[00:13:25] And I think that choreographers who most often are behind the scenes should be given a face.
I think we should see and hear this community.
[00:13:38] I am passionately committed to that here on the podcast and beyond. So that is the thought that got me through climbing this very steep learning curve. New equipment, new software, new technology, new process, new workflow. Riley and I were a well oiled machine when it came down to the old workflow, and scrapping that for not.
[00:14:03] Having a plan was super daunting. I know that there's a lot of talk on my podcast and beyond about.
[00:14:09] Having a strong why. Like, I need to really believe in.
[00:14:13] Why I'm doing this. In order to do this. The thing that is challenging or the thing that has the physics of it.
[00:14:22] Is simply that I have to work.
[00:14:24] Harder to do more. That's the bottom line. An object in motion stays in motion. An object at rest stays at rest. And a video podcast is harder than an audio podcast.
Like, those are the simple rules of it. And in scaling that mountain, it really did help me to remember that I do this because I care about dancers, I care about choreographers, I care about the community.
But also, the sweet little bonus to all that is that I wind up having a front-row seat to learning from my favorite people in the world. And I'm a good sharer, I guess.
[00:15:01] I'm excited for you to have a front row seat right next to me for all of that. And I hope you're excited, too. If you do wind up loving, as much as I have these conversations, I hope that you go back if you're somebody who's new. I interviewed Marty Kudelka, my dear friend and mentor, yesterday. He'll be our first guest up of this new season. And in preparation for his episode, I went back and listened to episode 18 of Words That Move Me. It was his first time on the podcast, well, his only time until now. And that episode is fantastic. It's really good. Pat self on back. When I go back to listen to other ones as well, I'm smitten. I like what I do and I like what I make. And I love the people I get to do it with.
[00:15:48] I think I also love the people I get to share it with. Wow. Am I on one? I'm loving today. Get into that, Rizz. I think you fill my love cup. I think it floweth over.
Okay, so that's me on steep learning curves. Please remember your why? Why are you actually doing this?
[00:16:06] And I think usually it's not simply to learn. Like learning more wasn't my objective. Sharing more was sharing the faces of people I think aren't often seen, and sharing the voices of people I think aren't often heard.
[00:16:24] That is why I'm here.
[00:16:25] So stick around for it if that.
[00:16:27] Is what you're into.
[00:16:29] The third thing that I wanted to share, a third lesson learned.
She knows it's going to be big. Look at that. Oh, please rest your chin on my foot.
She rested her chin on my foot. Also shout out not paid. These jellies by Melissa. They smell good, y'all? They smell good.
[00:16:51] They smell like if you okay aging myself now. It's the theme also of this new season. It's where I talk about my age a lot. If you were around for those little cupcake dolls that turned inside out, so when they're in their original form, they look like a cupcake. And then you unfold the paper part of the cupcake and it turns into a dress. And there's a little body in there. And her hat is the frosting. Get out. Those things smelled good. Also some varieties of my little ponies. Those also had a good smell. But that smell is what my shoes smell like. I think Riz really likes it almost as much as I do. I have cornered people in public bathrooms.
[00:17:30] Put my leg up to their nose height and said, Smell my jelly. And they've been delighted every time that that has happened, which is more than one.
Where was I going? Got it.
One thing that is I think hopefully frequently found on breaks is freedom.
I'm not a person who vacations because I have so much freedom in my work. I find freedom in my work. I create it in general.
[00:17:59] But in my life as of late.
[00:18:03] I have not had as much freedom. I keep a tight schedule.
[00:18:08] I like it that way. And I'm finding I would like to be a person who does things in digestible bites and sometimes that's a once weekly podcast, but sometimes it's not. So from here on out, we'll be doing the podcast. In seasons, I'll go twelve weeks on and then four weeks off, and then twelve weeks on and then four weeks off. Because the freedom that I found outside of the weekly schedule routine was hugely effective.
[00:18:38] The places I was able to go mentally without thinking of who's my next guest, the areas in which I was able to train when, you know, constantly plugged into this well oiled machine that I told you about that Riley and I had built. It was nice to get out of that rhythm, and I think it was especially nice to be away from that rhythm long enough to give me time.
[00:19:00] To find this new rhythm.
[00:19:03] I think it's a common thought that you will plateau anytime you train at anything, you will reach a level where you plateau and then something has to change.
[00:19:14] I think it's smart in between change to take a break a so that you allow your mind space from the old choreography.
[00:19:22] The old routine gets broken by freedom space openness, and then you get to fill that freedom space openness and hopefully bring some of it with you infuse some of the new way with that freedom. That is what I really hope we can achieve here with this.
[00:19:40] So wish us luck.
[00:19:42] Question mark. Yeah. I think that's what I've learned about freedom is that breaks are.
[00:19:51] I don't love absolutes.
[00:19:55] I really don't.
[00:19:56] I try to avoid them on the podcast at all costs. You will rarely hear me say, always, never do this, don't do that, but I am going to say I do.
[00:20:03] I Think breaks are necessary.
[00:20:06] I'm grateful that I took the one that I took. I'm grateful to be back. I'm so glad that you're here. And I'll be digging in a lot more to the concept of freedom and the changes in my life around relationship, work, podcast, navigating. Great change. OOH. I have a lot to say about Navigating and making big decisions, and I have some incredible guests coming up this season, so oh, my God. I'm going to say this word. Click subscribe.
[00:20:32] Wow.
Yep. Or the bell.
[00:20:36] Isn't there a bell or something? Tell your friends.
[00:20:38] Leave a comment or rating or review or win. Or all of the above.
[00:20:45] Actually, certainly do all of the above.
[00:20:47] And I will see you very, very soon. Till then, keep it funky.
[00:20:51] This podcast was produced by me with the help of many big, big love to our executive assistant and editor, Riley Higgins. Our communications manager is Ori Valladares. Our music is by Max Winnie, logo and brand design by Brie Reetz, and thumbnails and marketing by Fiona Small. You can make your tax deductible donations to Words That Move Me, thanks to our fiscal sponsor, the Dance Resource Center, and also many thanks to you.
[00:21:17] I'm so glad you're here.
[00:21:18] And if you're digging the pod, please share it. Leave a review and rating. And if you want to coach with me and the many marvelous members of the Words That Move Me community, visit wordsthetmoveme.com. If you're simply curious to know more about me and the work I do outside of this podcast, visit thedanawilson.com.
