The Art of Decision-Making

By Sumi Clements

The hardest part of doing anything is deciding to do it. When approached to contribute to this blog, I was invited to write about any aspect of building a dance company. Since I could write short novels about my particular experiences in dancemaking, directing, working in a partnership, fundraising, producing, the list goes on… the prospect of singling any one of those things out amongst the rest seemed somewhat arbitrary. So I had to make a decision. And that felt ironically appropriate, since I attribute the birth and subsequent growth of Summation Dance to the art of decision-making.

It’s important to mention here that for my purposes, making a decision and following through are not two separate entities. One demands the other. So the best way for me to ensure that something gets done is to decide to do it.

When my co-founder (then friend and fellow grad school conspirator), Taryn Vander Hoop, and I sat down to design a post-graduation production idea, we left having decided to start a company instead. The next week we had a website full of prose that can only be described as a glorified letter of intent, though it read as fact. Shortly after, we commandeered our school’s theater and a lighting designer friend to hold a fake photo shoot to capture images of Summation’s “work”—of which there were none, since we didn’t yet exist, a moot point. Weeks later, as we were passing by the Baryshnikov Arts Center, we casually decided to go in to see if anyone was in the office. An hour later, we left with our company name penciled into their calendar for a season the following February.

Up until that moment, our “company” was still mostly just a thought, something elusive floating around in the ether (and the internet). But making the decision to put our names on that calendar then held us accountable to produce something— and more importantly— to figure out how to produce something. You know that phrase, “fake it ‘til you make it?" Nothing has ever applied more. But we made it. And I’m not referring to the proverbial “success;" I mean we actually made something. We learned how to fundraise, market, collaborate with designers, communicate with venues, and create an evening-length performance…all because we decided to and said we would.

Five years later and everything since then has been a long series of wild decision-making and follow through. We’re currently dreaming up our next adventure, which may include a dance van and cross-country road tour.

Be delusional. Make decisions. Hold yourself accountable. The rest is easy [ironic wink].

 

Sumi Clements is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Summation Dance.

http://www.summationdance.org/

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Related posts:

The Pre-Company Stage: By Lauren Simpson and Jenny Stulberg

Joan Woodbury of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company

Artist Profile #114: Rashaun Mitchell

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