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L J /^fid-afternoon or? the comer of Broad Street and
fm» College Avenue, 25-year-oid Dotan Negrin stands up
ifrom behind his well-traveled piano to ask if anyone
in the small audience can play the keys. A shy, middle school-
a$ed girl raises her hand. '‘Want to come op here and play?*
Negrin asks, but the girt vehemently shakes her head. Tmon/
He says. It's OK. I make mistakes all of the time.* Finally the
girt shrugs, takes a seat next to the cross-country traveling
street musician and begins to play. To the crowd, this is an
exciting Saturday afternoon spectacle, but for Negrin, this is
'just a normal day on the job.
Negrin wasn't bom a wandering gypsy, as you might
be inclined to assume. Three years ago he graduated from
Philadelphia's University of the Arts and returned home to tong
Island. NY to find work as an actor. Between auditions and
unpaid gigs, Negri n paid the bills doing everything from day
trading and mi estate to selling used items on eBay. However,
like many 20-somethings, he wanted more.
1 went to work for this real estate firm, and I was there
for three weeks before I was like, 'fuck this; I'm not going to
spend my life sitting in some office and running around like
cfaxyT
Be formed his own local acting group and attempted play
writing and screenwriting, but says none of these efforts cre
ated the result he desired.
*1 met these other actors who were doing the same things
at 40 that they were doing when they were 20, and it terrified
me,* Negrin says. *So, I thought, 'How can I take matters into
my own hands? How can I create success for myself/*
Be quickly got to work poring over marketing and business
books in search of a strategy. *1 wanted to leam how to main
tain my artistic integrity, but still make a living off of it" he
says.
In December of 2009 he took a delivery assignment for a
local photographer that sent him on a road trip from his home
state to Miami. It was during this trip that he came up with
the idea for Piano Across America,
Unlike many recession-era graduates, Negrin didn't wal
low in self pity or blame the economy when he didn't land his
dream job immediately. He didn't settle for a 9-to-5 cubide
farm and fade away into the quiet, either. Instead, in April
of 2011, he packed up his piano, his laptop, his Jack RusseU-
Chihaabue mix, Brando, and a few sujvival necessities into a
banana-colored box truck and set out on a journey across the
country.
In the months that followed, Negrin says he grew more than
he's ever grown before. He survived solely from the donations
of others, met over 500 people, encountered some of the most
influential conversations of his life and came home with cash
in his pocket
*1 don't want to come off too strong or impose my philoso-
phy on anyone/ Negrin says. *But I want to extend a hand to
people and say, Took, I've taken some risks and broken myself
out of this routine and, if you want you can, too/
To date, Negrin has played in the parks, street corners
and beaches of over 30 dries across the U.S., and all the
while he's been keeping a log of his experiences on his site:
Pianoaorossamerica.com, In the future, he says he wants to
start a nonprofit take his piano across the world and do some
thing he's always wanted but only recently found the courage
for. play piano onstage.
*1 don't question what Fm doing,* Negrin says. Tm at the
pdnt where Fm so confident that I swear X can't see myself
(Jmng anything else/
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JANUARY il, 2012 ■ FlAGPOLE.COM 13
