Songs For The Struggling Artist

In addition to making my own, I listen to a lot of podcasts. In my feed consistently for the last 7 or 8 years has been Marc Maron’s WTF, wherein he talks with people – mostly from the entertainment biz. I’ve learned a lot- but one major thing that I don’t think I would have known without this medium, is the way male entertainers talk to each other. In most of these conversations, at some point Maron will ask his guest “Who were your guys?” He’s asking who inspired his guest…who they idolized, who they looked up to.  To read more of The Guys, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Episode 33  Song - Luck by Emily Rainbow Davis  To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https:/

The patriarchy won big time on November 8th, 2016. Enough voters and enough Russian hackers wanted the patriarchy to win. Enough people were like – “Yeah, the primal expression of the patriarchy is for us!” and voted for it. It’s pretty fucking awful but the patriarchy won. And I hate it. It made me cry big sloppy tears. And I was paralyzed and horrified and ready to hide in a basement for as long as was necessary. To keep reading My Hagification Has Begun go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 31. No song this episode.  Photo via Pixabay To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

I should have been crying. The music was telling me that’s what I ought to be doing. And I cry at commercials so it is not usually hard to push the tears button in an emotional moment on a TV show. But I was not crying. I was flailing my arms in fury. My boyfriend looked at me and asked, “What?” I explained that I needed a minute to deal with my rage. It didn’t take him long to work out what had made me so mad. It was (WARNING: SPOILERS for Sherlock Season 4 Episode 1 ahead) not just that they’d killed off one of the only complex female characters in the show to forward the story of the two male leads (a trope that happens so often that it has a name. It’s apparently known as fridging.) It was that in her dying moments she said to her husband, John Watson, “You were my whole world. Being Mary Watson was the only life worth living.” To read more of The Sherlock Fridging go to Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/

Ever since I read Marge Piercy’s Sex Wars: A Novel of Gilded Age New York, I have been obsessed with Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president. I’ve read numerous biographies of her and her sister, Tennessee Claflin. Despite there being no shortage of plays, stories and movies written about them, I have been unable to resist writing my own version of their story. (It’s either called Public Women or Hamlet, Without the Ghost.) To read the rest of We Almost Had It go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 29. Song is Redacted.  To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

London. 2016. The day after the Brexit vote. The city was in shock. I was visiting and that day I saw multiple friends, coincidentally all of them born in other countries but residents of the UK for well over a decade. One of my friends proposed a response to all the immigration hysteria gripping the UK. She suggested organizing everyone who had emigrated/immigrated to the UK to pick a day to not go to work. The country would inevitably grind to a halt – and everyone would see what a vital contribution immigrants make. I thought this was a brilliant idea. To keep reading A Day Without Immigrants go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 28 Song: "The Only Word I Know" by Emily Rainbow Davis To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow

The couple got on the N train and asked in their best English if the train was going to Scent Pearl. I asked them if they meant “Central Park” and if so, yes, it was going there and they settled in. They were from Brazil and delighted that I could understand their English sometimes and occasionally bits of their Portuguese. We had a companionable ride, misunderstanding one another at every turn. (Example: “How long are you here?” “We’ve been married 25 years.”) They told me I was very nice and friendly (I think this is what they were saying) and that they were happy to meet me. I told them I was also happy to meet them. They told me their names and I told them mine. I was pretty pleased to have made a nice connection with some strangers from far away. To keep reading A Universal Symbol for "That's Racist" visit Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 27 To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Son

As soon as it became clear that the worst had happened on November 8th, my friends and fellow artists began saying things like, “Well, it’s horrible. But at least we’ll get some great art out of this.” and “Repressive regimes make for great art movements.” Ethan Hawke in a recent Hollywood Reporter interview said, “The Artistic Community thrives when fascists are in charge.” To read more of "Art Under Fascism Is Good Actually" visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 26 Song: Earthbound by Emily Rainbow Davis To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

Occasionally, right after I push PUBLISH on my blog, I get a flood of additional ideas on the topic. I start to think of ways I should edit it or concepts I want to add. Sometimes I’ll go back in and edit or add – other times I’ll just let it lie. And sometimes I need to continue the thought in an entirely new blog post. That’s what happened when I opened up the floodgates on sexism in theatre. Thoughts just kept rushing in and I had to write follow-up-post after follow up. Some of those were based on the feedback I was getting and some of it was the swirl of it all marinating in my brain. This post is of the marination variety. In thinking about being different – from the social science around non-conformity to my own history, I realized there was an additional factor that I didn’t factor in to my initial thoughts on the subject. That factor, in my case, was gender. To read more of The Discomfort of Being Different visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 25 Song: Pavane for the Nurser

I make theatre. For years I tried to make it the way everyone else was making it but I found I was always running into trouble and it never turned out the way I wanted. When I realized that I didn’t have to try and fit in, I felt liberated. I didn’t have to do things the way other people did them. I didn’t have to follow the accepted norm. I could do it my way. I could audition actors my way. I could rehearse my way. I could perform my way. To continue reading The Discomfort of Being Different, go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 24. Song: A Girl Named George by Emily Rainbow Davis To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-ar

Warning: Sweary Feminist Rant Ahead. If you object to swears, hold your ears. F#*! muses. I’m done with reading about f$%*ing muses. Not the Actual Muses, not Terpsichore or Erato. I could read about them all day. But the g&*$damn muses who inspired the Great Painters and Giants of Literature and whatnot. If you want to read more of No More Muses go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 23.  Song: Interdependent by Emily Rainbow Davis To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

You guys. I love podcasts. I can’t call myself a vanguard podcast listener (I wasn’t really in the very first wave of podcast listening) – but I caught on pretty quickly and have been listening for about a decade. And for many of those years, most of the voices in my podcast feed were male. They were the hosts of public radio shows or men interviewing (mostly) men. To read more of Why I Started Podcasting visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 22. Song: The Extreme Woman Song by Emily Davis and Dmitri Kalmar from The Great God Money (the musical) To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

“If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research.” I walked past the NYU Environmental Fluid Dynamics Lab and saw this quote in their window. It is (probably mis-)attributed to Albert Einstein but the sentiment is useful regardless of who came up with it. You can read more of If We Knew What We Were Doing on the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 21 Song: Wynken, Blynken and Nod by The Simon Sisters To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

My theatre company’s crowdfunding campaign for Research and Development of our show got me thinking about arts funding and the way art gets supported. Generally, arts crowdfunding campaigns live or die based on the response to an idea, that is, the opinions of the people funding it. If a project’s friends and family LIKE the idea of the project, they fund it. If they’re not keen on it, like they think, “I wouldn’t want to go see that,” – they won’t. This is actually, at the gut level, often how grants get passed out as well. “Is this show, art-work, dance – something I’d want to see?” If yes – Stamp of Approval. If no – Rejection. To read the rest of The Danger of Relying On Opinions visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  Song: "Not My Type" by Emily Rainbow Davis This is Episode 20 To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

I’ve lived in New York City for over a decade and a half. This year, I’ve probably gone to more museums and cultural institutions than I did in all the previous years put together. This is due to the new ID NYC, a program originally conceived to assist undocumented immigrants but that is now making a difference in the lives of all kinds of New Yorkers. To read more of ID NYC Makes a Difference go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist Blog. This is Episode 19 Song: Jackson Song by Patti Smith To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

For about a week, I was crying at pretty much every opportunity. I got on the train, I’d cry. I’d lie on the floor, I’d cry. I’d go to the bathroom, I’d cry. In the moment, the source was not entirely clear but I finally traced it to the total terror of beginning work on a new show. Read more of The Panic at the Beginning on the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  Song: All Through the Night by Jules Schearer (originally recorded by Cyndi Lauper)  This is Episode 18 To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me, Emily Rainbow Davis, on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

I’ve written before about the changing landscape of Teaching Artistry. I’ve written about how arts education has changed in my years in the business. For the most part, I do most of my teaching outside of school environments these days but every so often, I’m brought back into the Arts in Education world. What the re-encounter highlights for me is how at odds my goals are with the goals of a lot of Arts Education. To read the rest of Why I Shouldn't Work in Schools Anymore, go to the blog.  This is Episode 17. Song: "Mother*&*#er Pulled Out a Tuba" - Improvised Bright Red Boots Song To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

While working with some 9th graders on Juliet’s “Gallop Apace” speech in Romeo and Juliet, I opened the door for the students to tell me what was happening. They worked it out faster than most groups do and quickly leapt to interpretation. One girl reported that Juliet was scared to have sex for the first time. I asked her to tell me where she saw that in the text and the line she pointed to means nothing of the sort. You can read the rest of Juliet Capulet, Feminist Role Model on the blog. This is Episode 15. Song: Shade the Moon by Bright Red Boots To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

This is one of my favorite blogs: "Congratulations! You’ve made and/or kept a friend who is an artist. That’s great. Your friend is fun and/or serious and you like them. But there will come a moment when you have to deal with their art. Maybe you’ll be invited to their art show or their play. Maybe you’ll read their story in a magazine or see their dance on TV. It’s exciting, yes. But I can understand you might be a little nervous, too. What on earth are you supposed to say to them afterwards? You have some choices." You can keep reading How to Talk to an Artist on the blog. This is Episode 14. To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

I saw a big fancy Broadway show that lots of my friends and colleagues had been raving about. It’s a show that utilizes the skills, ideas, movement vocabularies and motifs of devised and physical theatre. I saw elements of Viewpoints, of Chorus Work, of Dance Theatre. For many Broadway audiences, this piece felt extremely innovative and experimental. I’d wager that 97% of the audience had never seen anything like it before. You can read more of Ecosystem of a Theatre Scene on the blog. This is Episode 13. Song: Starfish in the Desert by Emily Rainbow Davis To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support

Listen. If you want to help me and give me opportunities, you can call me whatever you want. I’m happy to receive your beneficence as a “young” artist (I’m 42) or as a unicorn (a magical, majestic creature, certainly) or as an “emerging artist.” It’s really, like, all semantics at a certain point – if also inaccurate. Since I can no longer technically be called a “young artist,” I am, most often, called this “emerging artist” thing when I apply or receive artistic opportunities. But what does emerging really mean? You can read the rest of Can We Find Another Word for Emerging? here. This is Episode 12. To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/  Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis  Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/songs-for-the-struggling-artist/support