There’s a moment in every dancer’s and directors development and in every leader’s journey in the world when the safest thing to do is stay still. Hold the position you know. Repeat the step you’ve already mastered. Stay small enough that nothing can knock you down. And then there’s the other choice to grow fearlessly and continue to love deeply!
Grow Fearlessly, Love Deeply…Harriet Macauley Director, Choreographer, Performer and Equality Activist 2025-2026
“Fear Is Not the Enemy of Growth” and we often talk about fearlessness as if it means the absence of fear. It doesn’t for me. It means the absence to take everything too seriously, as the life we live it fragile, uncertain and always changing.
Growth asks something uncomfortable and that is to be a beginner again in everything I do. To let go of the identity we built or the fame others build around being “good or prefect at something” and therefore reducing the risk of being uncertain, even wrong, in service of becoming something more. I think to become something more, I believe we have to be uncertain, pushed, surprised, loved, not loved, accused and gossiped about in all forms of dance, practice, collaboration and projects.
The history of choreographers, creators, makers, entrepreneurs and great scientific thinkers who were declared mad or even declared deluded are witness to the complexity of lived creativity and growth unknown to the rhythm and pulse of life. The irony is that the growth we seem most afraid of is usually the growth that changes us the most, pushes us to accept, to step into the unknown, and to choose creativity over glory or fame on the planet.
To love deeply, even when it’s risky is my path. It is a love so deep that it invites risk in my life, and to love deeply is to invest fully, in my craft, my community, the people I lead, and the mission I serve, without guaranteeing the outcome. It mirrors the life pattern of existence, waking up each day, not knowing what will happen, or when the last day of physical human existence will come? Or the last breath will vibrate in and out of the body.
I am showing up for myself, team, friends, family, even when I am not sure. It means pouring myself into life’s projects without holding part of myself back, and not re-living the past invented events, where it is cold dark and has no breathe or life energy.
This kind of love, that I practice, isn’t soft. It’s one of the strongest things a creator can practice, as it requires the same courage that growth does, the willingness to be affected, to be changed, to be undone and to rebuilt in what you care about in this life time.
Pride, anger, jealousy, deceit and betrayal are the attributes that stop feeding growth. It is to feed egos, weakness and more, which push the mind and spirit into darkness. Growing fearlessly and loving deeply isn’t a milestone, it is a daily practice, a choice and internal muscle to have the willingness to step forward with hands open and heart engaged.
Tupac Shakur spoke often through his music, poetry, and interviews about the heavy realities of love, pain, and the necessity of personal evolution. “I want to grow. I want to be better. You grow. We all grow. We’re made to grow. You either evolve or you disappear.” Tupac Shakur
AND….
“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.” Tupac Shakur
Harriet Macauley, Barcelona, Spain 2026
