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Portrait of Nicholas Sakai, Soloist, Oregon Ballet Theatre
Oil on carved plywood, 42” x 31”
Nicholas:
This is the first time someone asked me to do a project like this. It was a privilege to be invited to collaborate with Paul, and I was so excited to experience a different way to express art other than on the stage... At least in theory. All I had to do was take this opportunity to come up with something.
So I stood in front of my phone, video on, trying to make something up. Having never created anything before, I can say now that it is hard as hell. An hour later, I was lying on the floor, sweating, and realizing I had nothing. I was walking into this collaboration without any material.
Oh God.
I've grown too used to not having to create. I can express and act; that's my job, sure, but there's something so raw and real about creating. I've never been truly myself in art. As a dancer, you are doing someone else's choreography, telling someone else's story, conveying a character that's not you. It's no wonder I stood in front of a camera and felt like a fish out of water for thirty minutes. Then like a centipede cut in half for another twenty.
And here I was, overthinking it. Paul? He seemed so excited to see what we could come up with in the studio. He was patient, open-minded. I came up with the prompt of weird shapes, where in wearing all black and white with a funky B&W sweater, I just tried to make satisfying shapes. Paul met each of my ideas with such a positive reception that it gave me a comfortable place to build on. The best part about this was that it gave him freedom to choose what to work with from a series of different positions, relieving me of having to commit to anything.
It was such an experience. What felt embarrassing for me before turned into curiosity. Where I would've felt shame, instead I laughed. I was definitely outside of my comfort zone, but it was such a pleasant way to ease myself into this. I feel so grateful to be a part of this, and Paul's final piece left me speechless. He managed to take my whole day’s work and capture it all in one picture.
Portrait of Nicholas Sakai, Soloist, Oregon Ballet Theatre
Oil on carved plywood, 42” x 31”
Nicholas:
This is the first time someone asked me to do a project like this. It was a privilege to be invited to collaborate with Paul, and I was so excited to experience a different way to express art other than on the stage... At least in theory. All I had to do was take this opportunity to come up with something.
So I stood in front of my phone, video on, trying to make something up. Having never created anything before, I can say now that it is hard as hell. An hour later, I was lying on the floor, sweating, and realizing I had nothing. I was walking into this collaboration without any material.
Oh God.
I've grown too used to not having to create. I can express and act; that's my job, sure, but there's something so raw and real about creating. I've never been truly myself in art. As a dancer, you are doing someone else's choreography, telling someone else's story, conveying a character that's not you. It's no wonder I stood in front of a camera and felt like a fish out of water for thirty minutes. Then like a centipede cut in half for another twenty.
And here I was, overthinking it. Paul? He seemed so excited to see what we could come up with in the studio. He was patient, open-minded. I came up with the prompt of weird shapes, where in wearing all black and white with a funky B&W sweater, I just tried to make satisfying shapes. Paul met each of my ideas with such a positive reception that it gave me a comfortable place to build on. The best part about this was that it gave him freedom to choose what to work with from a series of different positions, relieving me of having to commit to anything.
It was such an experience. What felt embarrassing for me before turned into curiosity. Where I would've felt shame, instead I laughed. I was definitely outside of my comfort zone, but it was such a pleasant way to ease myself into this. I feel so grateful to be a part of this, and Paul's final piece left me speechless. He managed to take my whole day’s work and capture it all in one picture.