Failure Project Day Two: was that as hard as you expected?

Today Lara and I were both quite tired and sore. I think we sprinted into our first day with a lot of enthusiasm yesterday, and... well, it's not a failure to admit that our bodies have limits.

We continued working on our impossible tasks regardless. It's funny how  - even knowing it is not possible, given the person that I am - I still want to get the dance routine right. And I feel frustrated that I can't get it right. This is also the person that I am. The alternative to getting it "right" is to make the dances our own, somehow. Lara observed that there is a childlike quality to me, as I watch the music video and simultaneously try to copy it - a little girl joyously imitating her hero... when I can be joyous about the process. I don't think I was unafraid of failure as a child - I didn't like getting things wrong, and I hated being laughed at. It's still a struggle willingly to make a fool of myself, which is probably why I need to do it if I want to examine failure.

I recently became interested in how sports players and managers talk in their post-match interviews: the language they use, the way they can say a lot without actually saying anything of substance, the often pointed questions about failure they have to answer.



We spent some time watching these interviews today, and then tried to make our own versions - breaking down the many ways in which I am not Beyoncé, and Lara is not Sergei Polunin, but using the language and shape of a post-match interview. We looked for post-audition interviews to see if they are comparable, but it seems that the world of competitive arts (Britain's Got Talent etc) just borrow from the sports world, and ultimately it feels a lot more manufactured and not as interesting.

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