I’ve been flexing my dancing muscles. When the supremely talented composer and director Fabio D’Andrea and choreographer Jerry Reeve asked me to be in their short film I couldn’t turn them down. Their piece examines the effects of fame, the insecurities social media can perpetuate and the breakdown of mental health. Shining a light on this is especially important now.
The meaning behind the music and choreography is deeply personal to me. This film shows the story of a celebrity being photographed and you think, Wow, he’s obviously living the dream. He must be loving all this attention. But the reality is he’s struggling so much with just being alive. The piece explores the inner demons of the “celebrity” before he reconnects with himself as a child, finding a new positive way forward. As you become an adult, you can sometimes lose touch. You see yourself only projected through other people’s opinions of you and are judged by how you look. This is the storyline for this character, this hyper version of where I’m at in my career.
There’s a lot of anxiety that comes with being a performer. But at the same time, it’s about how going back to when you were a child where you have all these hopes and dreams and then, when they become reality, they can get blurred. You lose sight of what it was you went into it for, which was the fun and adventure.
This film is about trying to hold on to that. At a time when the world is united by coronavirus and facing the challenging isolation of lockdown, the arts play an ever-more important role in helping people to find solace and connection.
There’s nothing more powerful in raising people’s awareness of mental health. The message overall in the film is don’t be afraid to talk about it. If you connect with someone, it helps because you don’t feel alone. I think that’s what mental health is: the more people talk, the more it normalises it, and the less scary it becomes.
I hope watching this short film moves you, as it’s a beautiful piece of art. It’s beautiful music but it’s also very hopeful. You go into the pain of this character, and what he’s coping with, and then he sees himself as a kid and he’s like: “I can face the world again.” I love this piece of music and I want people to find Fabio’s work. If we can give exposure to cultural quality in the world then that’d be brilliant. I’d love that.
Fabio D’Andrea — Something Left to Love can be viewed at youtube.com/watch?v=2kAltXpVxm8
