Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashley Taylor. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ashley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I often think about this question! I have frequently asked myself if art is really “useful”—that is, solving any problems of humankind—and then looked with longing and even envy at my friends who seem to have “simpler” careers with straightforward trajectories: go to school, get a job. The work of a creative, especially a freelancer, is far less clear-cut and far more individual. I have to remember not to compare myself to others, even those within my own field, as we all have different paths, gifts, ideas, strengths, and passions. I also remind myself that artists carry a great privilege: we get to create what we believe is missing in the world, and to orchestrate the stories, music, dances, and other art that touch people and bring the human experience to light in a new way. In the end, that isn’t something I would trade for a regular job.

Ashley, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I label myself broadly as a “creative”, but most often that is expressed through dancing, choreography, and writing. I have been dancing since I was four and have been a professional dancer since I graduated college, both as an established company member and as a freelancer. I’ve also been making up my own dances since I was little, and I got to dabble more in formal choreography in college. In the last few years, I’ve been a guest choreographer for several dance companies and am in the process of launching my own, Ara Dance Project. Finally, I’ve been writing stories, poems, and essays since I was six, and I completed a novel during the pandemic. In all these areas, I find myself continually obsessed with the creative process; I love the journey of finding inspiration and figuring out how best to express a theme through movement, words, form, structure.

My experience as a dance student, dance company member, and dance viewer/analyst, as well as a broad reader, has really helped me hone my own artistic voice. I’ve been inspired by a lot of good and beautiful processes, and I’ve also seen a lot of dysfunctional or less-than-optimal methods of making art that I don’t wish to perpetuate. It’s incredibly valuable to understand both!

In all my creative work, I am interested in illuminating the intersection between the human and the transcendent. I believe that art should inspire us to be more than what we are, and I believe that the process of making art matters just as much as the end product. As such, when I choreograph, I strive to maintain an atmosphere where dancers are encouraged to explore, to contribute, to laugh, to find healing, and to be human. I also want my works to be compelling and meaningful to a broad audience. I personally don’t want to produce art for art’s sake; I want instead to use art to touch and inspire people. I am most proud when I hear that my writing, my choreography, or my dance performance made someone think or made someone cry. That’s when I know I’ve succeeded.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think it’s hard as a creative to explain to non-creatives what on earth we do all day! I often find myself starting to recount what I’ve been working on lately and eventually trailing off, because little of the time I spend on artmaking results in a tangible product I can point to and say “See? That’s what I made!” The truth is that hours and hours are spent in training, seeking inspiration, ideation, envisioning, planning, researching, finding music (for choreography) or other resources, reaching out to collaborators, the actual [sometimes frustrating] process of creating, and then multiple iterations of reworking, cutting, and editing until I arrive at a final product. I think it’s important for non-creatives to understand that the process can be grueling and often takes a very long time, but it’s also incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. If an artist feels internally compelled to make something, there’s basically no talking them out of it. No matter how long it takes, they are committed to getting it out into the world.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’ve had several creative setbacks in dance, where I felt like I and my work were misunderstood and therefore under-appreciated. I’m not a prodigy talent, so I’ve experienced a fair amount of rejection, but I am flexible and a very hard worker and I tend to steadily prove my value over time. One story from college is when the original idea I presented to be showcased in a student choreography concert, which I was proud of at the time, was rejected by the dance faculty—partly for reasons I later came to appreciate as legitimate, and partly for reasons that still don’t make sense or were inconsistent with how they treated other students’ work. My initial response was deep discouragement, but I came around, found another idea, and was able to present an entirely new work, to which the faculty (and, later, my family) responded, “There—THAT’S you.” That experience was again instrumental in helping me accept and define my own artistic voice, rather than (as in my original idea) trying to parrot the kind of work I thought other successful student choreographers were making. It also illustrates the tired but timeless advice: when you fall, you’ve got to get back up again. More than likely, you’ll end up stronger than you were before.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aradanceproject.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aradanceproject
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aradanceproject
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChRvQbyYqUn2AQo7d06gx5g

Image Credits

Sarah Gilliam, Kristen Pugh, Sarah Escobar, Kaitlin Alter