A Review of Art Above Everything: Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life
Review by Rey M. Rodríguez
Reading is often a process of discovery. We think we are reading about one thing, but as we delve into the story’s heart, we realize that it is about something much more essential or profound. That was my experience when I read Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s extraordinary new book, Art Above Everything: Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life.
Elizondo Griest’s work wrestles with the question “Is Art Enough?” More completely, she asks, is it enough to dedicate one’s whole self to the pursuit of art to the exclusion of other things that others value, such as family, friends, or a stable career? She explored this question by traveling to faraway places, such as Rwanda, India, Iceland, Romania, Mexico, Cuba, Qatar, and New Zealand, many of which she knew nothing about. She sought answers from female creators in these different places who have dedicated their lives to art, despite many times facing the threat of death, societal isolation, misogyny, and other challenging obstacles. I am not giving anything away by saying that her answer, chapter after chapter, is a resounding “Yes!” but not for the reasons that the reader might expect, which only propels the reader to keep reading and reflecting upon each artist and their compelling stories.
Although Elizondo Griest has been ruminating over this question for most of her adult life, the writing of the book commenced a decade ago, almost by accident, when she received an invitation to a writing residency in Bangalore, India. She went there to write a different story. The particular village of the residency housed the world-renowned classical Indian dance ensemble, Nrityagram. The program’s founder, Protima Gauri, is quoted as saying: “I dream of building a community...where nothing exists, except dance. A place where you breathe, eat, sleep, talk, imagine—dance.” The perfect place for Elizondo Griest, who describes herself as an “art monk,” to find others dedicated to art in the same way. She had no idea how these dance practitioners would alter her life.
Surupa Sen and Bijayni Satpathy, master teachers at Nrityagram, danced together for decades. They dedicated themselves to stretching, rehearsing, and teaching “from sunup to sundown each day.” When on tour, they danced and slept together for months, spending thousands of hours together so that on the dance floor, they were virtually one. Elizondo Griest writes, “‘Dancing’ only begins to describe it. No, these women are chasing something sacred. Something divine. Something pure.” What impressed the author so much was that these women, for over forty years, placed art above everything, regardless of what societal expectations or family responsibilities dictated. Everything was risked to dance at this level.
Those who choose this dance, called Odissi, also study yoga, martial arts, meditation, Indian literature, Sanskrit, and mythology for twelve hours a day, six days a week, for six years or more. The apprentices live together, share meals, cook, clean, and garden during this time. It truly is a monk’s life because all “external commitments,” including romantic ones, are discouraged. This traditional system of learning dates back a thousand years before Christ and is called “gurukul” (“guru” meaning “teacher” and “kula” meaning “extended family”).
While interviewing Surupa, Elizondo Griest learned from her, “That balance is what you live for. It is the search of all living, to find that perfect balance where you are personally fulfilled and spiritually fulfilled.” She goes on to say, “But it is a difficult thing to do. Many days, I think of the helplessness of being an artist.” From Bijayini, the writer learns that she sacrificed a lot to be a dancer. Her family ostracized her for her decision to dance. But her main goal “was to dance every single day.” And she attained that goal at Nrityagram. It was the constant repetition of the dances that brought her inner joy. It was this utter devotion to art that impressed Elizondo Griest and inspired her on a decade-long search to study others with such devotion at all costs.
She followed the work of Hope Azeda, Malaika Uwamahoro, and Gakire Katese Odile in Rwanda, who use art to achieve reconciliation in their nation, where in 1994, one million were killed in 100 days. She then interviewed Florica Prevenda, Marilena Preda Sânc, and Anca Petrescu in Bucharest, Romania, artists who survived the Ceaușescu regime. Later, she met Fatma al Shebani, Hana al Saadi, and Carolina Aranibar-Fernández, who are changing the art world with their wealth and taste from Doha, Qatar. She had to learn about ballet before interviewing Wendy Whelan, one of the greatest ballerinas of her time, in New York City. And the list goes on: Vilborg Davidsdottir and Björk in Reykjavik, Iceland, Cielo in Peru, Sandra Cisneros in San Miguel de Allende, Mama Mihirangi in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and Ayana Evans in New York City.
While I enjoyed all of these beautifully drawn descriptions of courageous artists, a chapter entitled “Art Is Unzipping Your Body” moved me to my core. In this chapter, Elizondo Griest describes the power of art, specifically belly dancing, to expose a person’s essence. Shockingly, during the writing of the book, she discovered that she had a cancerous tumor the size of a basketball. After surgery, chemo, and three months following being released from treatment, she travels to Havana, Cuba, to be in the company of belly dancers. She had been a dancer once.
Surrounded by the physical beauty of the other women, she looks at herself in the mirror. She has her fresh scars, sunken eyes, a double helix from her chemo port, and only stubble of hair on her head. She stands there frozen. To her right is another dancer with the stretch marks and scars of a recent cesarean. Their eyes meet. Without saying a word, the recent mom, a Cuban with thick wavy hair, slides her hips to the right and waits for Elizondo Griest to follow. She moves. The mom then “drops her right hip down, then glides to the left.” Just as she mirrors her, the mom moves and undulates. Together they dance until their “scars of nascent life and near-death blur together.” Through dance, and at that moment, Elizondo Griest finds her inner beauty.
Much like the description of this moment, the book’s discussions about art or any of the other topics that Elizondo Griest covers so eloquently and with such heart, like climate change, misogyny, poverty, sexual violence, history, creativity, warfare, authoritarianism, and social displacement, blurred away in the end. And it is why the book is so important. Because, after falling in love with all the wonderful artists and Elizondo Griest’s family and story, I found that the book was essentially about grace. Do we ever give ourselves enough grace to accept ourselves for who we are, despite all our foibles, scars, disappointments, missed opportunities, wrinkles, defects, mistakes, and trauma? In essence, are we enough? After reading this book, I found that if we give ourselves the grace to see our divinity through our art, then the answer to that question is a resounding yes.
Rey M. Rodríguez is a writer, advocate, and attorney. He lives in Pasadena, California. He is working on a novel set in Mexico City and a non-fiction history of a prominent nonprofit in East LA. He has attended the Yale Writers' Workshop multiple times and Palabras de Pueblo workshop once. He also participates in Story Studio's Novel in a Year Program. He is a first-year fiction creative writing student at the Institute for American Indian Arts' MFA Program. This fall his poetry will be published in Huizache. His other book reviews are at La Bloga, the world's longest-established Chicana-Chicano, Latina-Latino literary blog, Charter House's blog, IAIA's journal, and Los Angeles Review.
