I am writing this, my first rant, from my Mexico office. The weather is fairly warm compared with yesterday´s weather in Amsterdam, but slightly chillier and undoubtedly dryer than the weather in Havana the week before that; next Saturday, Ill be flying back to Cuba for a fifteen day-long tour with my pop star Mariolis, before I head back to Berlin for a few days to meet my siblings who come for a short visit and then pack a few clean shirts and a freshly pressed suit to fly back to Tokyo one more time this month. The month after that looks just as cosmo (should the word apply). The way it is shaping up, it will be another month spent in three different continents once again.

I’ve been following this hectic lifestyle for a little over ten years now, and although everyday it is getting a bit harder to keep up with, it is easier (at least for me) to try to keep up with it than to let it go. Rushing to the airport at insanely early morning hours, knowing the morning security check officers by name at Tegel airport, crossing the Atlantic Ocean back and forth, and taking every available red eye to try to make it home a bit earlier are part of my daily routines now. Dealing with my jet-lag is not terribly bothersome anymore since it is as common as feeling hunger or thirst, and doctor feel good remedies are constantly at hand either at my bathroom cabinet, bedside table or even at my jacket pocket. And although returning home is normally the main purpose of every trip, leaving it as soon as my energy levels are up to “full” once again appears to be the other half of my life and its wicked goals.

I am a happy man. Satisfied both professionally and emotionally. I’ve become successful doing what I love and plan to stay in the game for as long as possible; I’ve earned huge amounts of money and I have lost huge amount of money as well but always in my game; I am as most, nevertheless, I have come to the conclusion that not as most, I am gravely ill!

Most sicknesses are only as bad as the comparison of the same illnesses bared by other men. For the last few years, although satisfied with my lifestyle and the fruits it reaped, I have become more aware that there is such a thing as the “sickness of travel” and if I do have any sickness this is the one I posses. It is difficult to see one´s own faults in the mirror; but eventually that image becomes so clear that it is virtually impossible to ignore.

My image for the last fifteen years have been my colleagues and clients, and although this is not an illness that affects all, it most certainly does affect the ones closer to me. Vladimir Malakhov has been one of my closest reflections during the last many years and through him, I’ve come to understand a bit more of who I am. Hell is others, Sartre would say; maybe so, but I would say hell is our own reflection in others and how that reflection affects our own being and our own self worth.

Vladimir and I have travelled the World back and forth for a long time now, and it always interested me (for lack of a better word) how we would return from a long tour normally exhausted, with my mind personally set on kicking back for a good week or two but seeing him catch the first flight out of Berlin with destinations unknown. He would return after a few days only to take off again the next day and disappear for a couple more days and then a few more until we finally had to leave on tour again. So basically touring for resting from touring.

Today my travel experience has changed as well… and although Vladimir´s hasn´t, I now still see him take off to different destinations right after arriving home, the difference is that now I see him leave from my own airplane window leaving towards unknown places as well.

What makes us want to leave? Are we escaping from something or someone? Or are we maybe just escaping from ourselves? I tend to believe (or want to at least) that I am not escaping; but I may me wrong, its difficult to say. Auto analysis is never an easy task. Nevertheless the question still remains, why are we running?

For year on end, I thought, and very honestly I must add, that the purpose of my traveling and that of my clients and colleagues resided in the simple fact of work. It is true, we are all stationed in particular companies and usually are needed elsewhere either for performances in all of the sorts, consulting jobs, or creation of possible projects for the near future. In my particular case, I am traveling every time less for actual ballet performances, and every time more for the structuring of futures projects either for my record label or for our philanthropy obligations with the “Malakhov Foundation” or the ones of “Seaquist Projects”. My colleagues and clients however are mostly doing their miles either by guestings, galas and festivals or for staging or re-staging new pieces or creations.

Facebook has become an awesome publicity and promotion machine which shows us each and every step that we and others are taking. And through it we can constantly check where our colleagues are and what they are up to. It is normal to see Daniil Simkin flying to and from New York every other week either going to Japan, Buenos Aires or back home to Germany. Or see how Iana Salenko is either guesting with Royal Ballet in London, coming to one of my shows in Dominican Republic or at Teatro San Carlo de Napoli before catching the first available flight to return to her family in Berlin. I love spending time with my good friend Noah Gelber, but we seldom get to see each other; either I am somewhere else or he is somewhere else staging Forsythe´s work in any of the five continents at any given week.

Work we must! It is a short career the one we chose. And, unfortunately for the level of training and knowledge that all dancers receive and have it is absolutely and embarrassingly underpaid; therefore, we must take as much as we can as fast as we can. For most artists, the World is their marketplace and we must learn to take the most advantage of it as possible. And although it might sound shocking and maybe ultra capitalist and avaricious, it is absolutely true: the bucks and exposure we don’t make today, we will never make up for tomorrow.

To travel is part of our daily routine and personally I am more shocked when I hear that a star is not traveling than when I know they are stage hopping from country to country, from continent to continent from one week to the next. It is only part of our job description.

Promotion and brand placement is paramount for our career and projects, nevertheless not one poster, or magazine article or post in either Facebook or Twitter will tell the truth about this sickly condition of over traveling and who has it and who does not. We all boast about our professional achievements and post media of our pics onstage; what happens behind it when the curtain drops and when the lights go off is normally veiled and off limits. We battle to show our best angle and to the best possible light.

I’ve just uploaded a few pictures of last night´s concert and I must say they look pretty damn good; it was a good show and practically sold out. On this precise moment the flight attendant had just approached me to turn my computer off since we are about to taxi off… Where? Nowhere special. I have no engagements for the next few days, but I cant stand still, since I am gravely ill with this strange yet not uncommon tiresome sickness of travel.