A Swift Kick

I'd never paid much attention to Taylor Swift. I was raised in the era of naughty girls and badasses like Stevie Nicks, Madonna, Pat Benatar, and Debbie Harry. Swift may be talented, but she's the romance-addled girlie-girl who processes her breakups in public… the chick whose spat with Kanye West marked her the damsel… the cheerleader who's marrying the football star.

I pay attention to her now.

I blame two young women I taught at a local high school. One young woman—let's call her Katie—was one of those energetic girls who get called "too much" by their underperforming boyfriends, all of whom know she's smarter and wittier than them. Katie buzzed with Taylor Swift fast facts, delivered at every opportunity.

The other young woman was graceful and drop-dead gorgeous; she undoubtedly woke early each day to style herself in bold colors with impeccable hair and make-up. I'll call her Jasmine. She was quiet at first, but once I encouraged her to share, Jasmine filled the room with insight and opinions.

I signed up for what I like to call my "artist in residency program" so I could return to my first love: leading acting classes for high school students. I'd been away from it for sixteen years, having stepped away from teaching to raise my child, who struggled with developmental delays. I sensed I couldn't handle being her caregiver and the dedicated teacher I used to be. But when my kiddo was sixteen and independent, I knew it was time to find that part of me again.

Katie and Jasmine had their own ideas.

There we were: Katie, Jasmine, and a blonde kid in black-and-white punk gear—the way I might have dressed if I'd been born three decades later. After secretly mourning my workshop's low enrollment, I led a round of acting warmups. Then, I offered activities and topics, asking what they were hoping to do in our sessions together. The blonde student said she wasn’t sure. Katie and Jasmine, however, knew exactly what they wanted: Write a scene. The blonde student agreed.

Shit, my brain sighed. I held my face in a smile with neutral eyes. Stay open. You're here for them. You know how to do this.

I'd taught writing for ten years—five-paragraph essays, literary analysis for the AP test, research papers, and the occasional poetry writing. I'd been good at it, but I'd always been stuck in the product-over-process mentality with students. Writing was for getting "college bound kids" successfully into higher education, preferably with AP credits in tow. No matter how much I tried to blend my love for the creative process with other instruction, "theatre teacher Sherry" and "English teacher Sherry" refused to converge.

After the initial shock, I led the tiny group in some basic theatre exercises, promising to bring scene-writing exercises to our next meeting. I asked them in closing circle what their passions were, seeing if I could get any common material from which to build scenes. They each named their favorite music--emo punk bands, Taylor Swift, and Taylor Swift. Katie and Jasmine immediately turned to one another with glee, rattled off their favorite songs, and landed in a tiff over which one was her best. I almost had to separate them, but dismissal time took care of things for me.

The next 48 hours were a typical example of what happens to my body as it processes a creative breakthrough. I went into a fugue state where ideas and memories performed a kind of ballroom mixer. My face went blank. I didn't write anything down, didn't verbalize, didn't feel much. I struggled to hear my family when they talked to me; if they had asked what I was thinking about, I wouldn't have been able to tell them. When the epiphany came, it came hard and fast. I spent hours searching for song lyrics, formatted and printed them, and stuffed my bag with a clipboard full of emo bands' and Swift's songs, a timer, highlighters, pens, and notepads.

For the next four weeks, I met with the young women and taught them directing principles: how to analyze song lyrics as if they were a scene; uncovering the characters behind a song's story; marking beats and finding motivations. Then, I taught them how to use the stage to create a five-scene tableau set: frozen images of the song's characters moving through its plot. Finally, I worked with them to stage the scenes and add dialogue inspired by the lyrics. It worked. All three girls wrote and staged short but richly textured scenes with deep characters.

At the beginning, I suspected I'd relate best to my emo doppelganger's content. Sure enough, in the final session, her scene was beautiful; she made herself the protagonist and performed it deftly. But Katie and Jasmine chose to play the part of Taylor Swift herself, utilizing their classmates to play the roles of Swift's father and ex-boyfriends. Each tableau successfully utilized levels, stage depth, body & facial language, and powerful dialogue taken almost directly from the lyrics. By the end of each performance, I had to check that my mouth hadn't fallen open in shock.

The depth of Katie and Jasmine's emotional understanding stunned me into humility. Their work taught me about Swift's struggles. More importantly, it taught me how her work had inspired them to be their authentic selves and to fight for the kind of love they deserved. Their work dared me to dream about how a softer role model like Swift might have helped me do the same as a teen.

After saying a bittersweet goodbye to these talented young women, I returned to my car, downloaded three Taylor Swift albums, and listened to them on shuffle mode for days after. Never again would I ignore or dismiss Swift or her fans. And never again would I forget that even I, a badass GenX queer, deserve to demand a love that sees me fully.