“It’s like Fame, except we don’t dance on the tables.”
This is how I would explain my graduating high school. It is an art school, The Los Anegeles County High School for the Arts, to be exact. We affectionately abbreviate it to LACHSA, pronounced Lock Suh. It incorporates all art mediums- performing to visual to fine. Lachsa is still operating and I hope thriving. However, when I uttered the title sentence, over twenty years ago, it was a school in its infancy.
I arrived at the school as a junior in its toddling year of existence. I may as well have been fresh off the farm, though I was a suburb kid from Colorado who had already been dancing and performing for several years. My mother had sent me information on the school and I auditioned over the summer while visiting her. I did two monologues, one from The Runaways and the ever classic, “Ladie’s First.” I wore a cooky hat and the volunteer with whom I signed in thought I was a parent and therefore I didn’t see any other auditioning students until a few seconds before my turn. The panel cut off my monologues well before their completion and asked me one question, “Will it bother you to not perform professionally while you attend school?” I answered, “No,” and was sent on my way, certain I had failed. To my delight, I had not, I had gotten in. I later asked one member of the panel about this and she replied, “Oh- we knew when you walked in the room.”
Two years of my life were spent at Lachsa. Two of the hardest, most challenging, most demanding, most freeing, most exhilerating years of my life. I met some of my closest friends at Lachsa, kindred spirits, unique thinkers, all of us united in a pursuit of the obtainment of the exonerated state of ‘art’ no matter our discipline of choice. We were a dedicated crew, we were exhausted from the rigorous schedule of academics in the morning and arts classes in the afternoon. For most of us this schedule was bookended by two hour bus rides and/or extensive commutes. I also had an after school job, as I was paying rent and surviving so that I could go to school. I do not believe any of us thought it was easy, yet it was the work we loved and finally on a subject we loved even more. We made it through bomb threats and earth quakes and Maya Angelou and Garcia Lorca and Barry Manilow. We made it through the constant fear of not being good enough or working hard enough and being sent back to regular high school. We championed constructive criticism and to top it all off, all of this happened at an institution on borrowed land. We were to be on our best behavior at all times, so that the campus who hosted us would not change their mind. Hence, no dancing on the tables, at the very least- not in shared areas or common grounds.
Yesterday, I saw the new Fame movie. I had high hopes for it- another film about my people! I was armed with Micheal Gore’s original film, which came out when I was nine and I remember watching it then, thinking, “I am too young to be watching this.” For it had extremely controversial themes and grit while it dared to show the truth of the struggle it can take to be an artist. I had five years of the television show under my belt, I knew Doris Schwartz like the back of my hand, Maureen Teefy to Valerie Landsburg. I auditioned to dance with Gene Anthony Ray when he came through Denver. I sang “The Body Electric” and I was “Out Here On My Own.” But Baby, no one can be strong enough to witness this new incarnation. Save, perhaps, the homogenized, off kilter, imbalanced, brainwashed, Hollywood youth and its blind followers.
Fame 2009 is chock full of the beautiful people, it looks pretty, even with some bad skin. It is a cliff notes version of a handful of students lives that no one cares about. They are boring and handsome and rich. They don’t break a sweat. Though, they do what they are told and get swindled by the most obvious swindlers and in the end they all get solos! There is no sex, though there is inappropriate dance montages for high school students and inappropriate teaching practices. Nothing nurturing, nothing sustainable, and so very much of a disneyafied New York, that truly makes me want to hurl. These are not my people. The people who created this movie are not my people. I will go so far as to say, Fame 2009 is a smoke screen, a distraction, a lie.
Yes, I could be too intimately involved. I do not apologize for that. I worked for it. In this day and time when arts funding is slashed to almost non existent statuses across the globe. In this day and time when art needs to be dangerous, when children need to have something to bite their teeth into- here is yet another smooth, non factual, inconsequential brief on how, as long as you look good and have no personality, you don’t need to work hard or delve deeper. There is no room in this world for meanings, or history, or substance. And by all means, no room for actual, real, pull your heart strings, wrench your gut- Art. They had a chance to turn it around, and they blew it.
By the time I matriculated, in Lachsa’s 1989 pomp and circumstance ceremony, I was marked for life. I knew how to criticise literature, I knew how to break down iambic pentameter, I knew how to project to the back row, I knew that the roses at the end come with the thorns in the process, I knew that every member of the corps is just as important as the star, as they both require the dedication and the work involved, I knew that every opening has a crew of unknown devoted behind the scenes artisans, I knew that art was work and life was hard when it mattered the most, I knew I didn’t want to shake Supervisor Antonovich’s hand at graduation, or ever. Why can we not teach the world and the world’s children the same thing. Correction, why can’t society and the media?
There are times, especially those of late, when I feel I am not honoring my arts education. I have been asking myself quite a bit lately, “What am I doing? Why aren’t I doing more?” My thoughts have been questioning my existence and I feel propelled to change, to call upon my art education and life experience and come up with a new way of life, honoring who I am, what I believe and what I want to represent. It isn’t an easy task, the burden of being an artist. Most times it isn’t viewed as noble, nor worthwhile. It is rarely viewed as arduous as it is, the world only seeing the few who receive acclaim. I do not know exactly how I will incorporate all of this into my life and its curving path and expanding journey, I simply know I have to.
Until I figure it all out, and after to be sure, I will stay in the Micheal Gore camp of Fame, I will remember his name and what he accomplished. I will be a proud alum of Lachsa. I will dance on the table of life, the table that needs a matchbox under one of its legs to keep from wobbling, the table that is slippery with the sweat of others who dared to dance their art upon it before me, the table that will support us- even when it is a replica of the deco style, the table we all gather at to discuss and share and thrive and together we’ll see where that gets me, us.