spiritual body is the most mysterious body of all, and it may be that the spiritual body always exists beyond the reach of words to describe it. It is the body that is endowed with the capacity to experience our connections to each other and the natural world. It is the body that is not only aware of the mystery of existence, but is most completely part of it. The spiritual body is, in one profound sense, our constant, fluctuating relationship to the life force. My deep commitment to dance stems from its ability to place me more consciously in touch with feelings of love, compassion, and the timelessness of being—the spiritual aspects of my self.
WHEN ORDINARY MOVEMENT BECOMES DANCE
What is the connection between ordinary, everyday movement and “dance”? How do we make the shift from one to the other? I believe this shift happens when we choose our movement for reasons other than the purely functional. When our awareness is focused on the expressive qualities of movement, we begin to experience it as dance. This awareness is available to anyone, regardless of any specific movement training. Dance, in these terms, is about intention, and not about the specific movements or actions themselves. Deep breathing can be a dance if we come to it with a quality of awareness and curiosity. Setting the table or sweeping the floor can be a dance. Imagine the possibilities for invigorating our lives when we bring this kind of awareness to movements we do every day.
The “techniques” I want to impart are ones that cultivate the whole person as a dancer rather than ones that make the dancer into a physical technician. When the four main levels of awareness—physical/kinesthe-tic, emotional, mental, and spiritual—are equally included in the process of creative expression, a bridge is made between unconscious and conscious awareness connecting the individual’s inner experience with external expression. It is because of the connections between movement, emotion, image (content), and spirit that we are able to uncover our personal stories and myths, as individuals and in community. The discovery of the personal myth and its relationship to the collective myth is the first step in creating a dance that will speak to the real-life situations and needs of the dancers and witnesses.
I want to make dances in which the movement itself is so real and direct that it will create an experience in the present that does not need to be mediated by an act of interpretation. It is not so much a matter of inventing interesting, clever, or evocative movements to access the body’s inner wisdom. It is more a process of finding an ordinary movement that is essential, one that serves the intention of the dance. Reaching, stretching, backing up, turning around, running, falling, rising are all ordinary movements, but when they are selected in relation to an intention and you notice the emotions and images they evoke, they transform into an artistic expression of who you are. When done with self-awareness, these ordinary movements create a visceral response in both dancer and witness. This kind of dance is filled with meaningful movements that serve a special intent.
Try this experiment. Put your arm out in front of you with your palm facing up. Notice what emotions arise. Then twist your hand so the palm is facing forward. Notice if this evokes a different response. Another experiment: Bow your head with the image of prayer. Then bow your head with the image of shame. How is that different?
This kind of movement can be generated in two different ways. You can generate a movement and see what experience it evokes. This can be as simple as enacting the instruction “Extend your arm and hand from the shoulder blade, and notice what happens.” By following this direction, you are allowing the mind to lead the body. What is important is that you are not being prescriptive about movement—you do not seek a movement to evoke a specific state. Rather, you notice what state the movement evokes.
A different approach is to just sense how your body wants to move, without any preset ideas. You don’t choose the movement; the movement chooses you. Think of some of our common descriptions of movement in relation to emotion. We jump for joy. We wring our hands in grief. We stomp in anger. When emotional states are intense and images clearly defined, the appropriate movements will arise.
One of the great attributes of movement is that it is malleable. You can be guided into discovering movements you would never think of doing yourself because of all your conditioning. Our belief systems have so shaped our responses that we tend to repeat the same habitual, inhibited patterns over and over again. Yet, in a safe and trusting atmosphere, you can be guided into doing movements that are totally fresh and new, that would never have come out of your own stimulus-response patterns. These movements may not seem to match the way you think you feel, yet when you do them, they open up a whole new vocabulary, a whole new possibility in life that you didn’t know was there.
When leading a workshop, I try to create the conditions for this kind of movement to arise. It’s important to establish a nonjudgmental atmosphere, where people understand that nothing they do is wrong. We’ve been loaded down with so many shoulds and shouldn’ts that we’ve lost the capacity to fully experience ourselves and our truths through our bodies. I am not interested in teaching a particular style of movement; rather, I want people to get in touch with how they move naturally, without aiming for a particular effect.
My teaching involves a balancing of structure and freedom. Imagine that you’ve come to my studio for a class. We might begin with the physical body, with the question: Where am I in my body? Here’s what I might instruct you to do: Lie down on the floor, then start to roll very slowly. To heighten your awareness, pay attention to the shapes, feelings, and sensations in your arms. Whenever I give a cue, stop and appreciate your position in space, as if you were a piece of sculpture. What emotions come up? Is there an image? Now roll the other way, this time paying attention to your head. What are the physical sensations? And what is the relationship between your head and the other parts of your body? When you move your head, what happens to your arms, for example?
Next I might focus on the ribs in relation to rolling. I make sure there are lots of pauses, so people can really appreciate the sculptural quality of their movement. In this way the class is developing resources, exploring movement possibilities and deepening their awareness. We spend a lot of time doing this, so people can really relax. The directions are simple, but they require connecting the brain to the body. I also call attention to the breath, how it is generated in the ribs and moves through the body. Dance, I believe, is breath made visible.
After the ribs we might look at the spine in relation to rolling. What happens when you move your sacrum? How does it connect to your pelvis, your legs, your arms, and your head? Now go to the lumbar region and discover how much range of movement there is. When I teach, the way I speak is important: I’m not telling people what movement to expect but asking them to explore, engaging them in the process rather than dictating, so I ask a lot of questions like, “When you do this, what do you notice?” This allows people to continue to deepen their internal awareness of sensation and emotion, rather than understanding what they are doing only through their cognitive awareness.
Now I might introduce movement dynamics, asking people to notice what happens if they start moving slowly but then shift and move quickly, then stop. Adding dynamics shapes movement in a different way. It may stimulate an emotional response. Compare, for instance, the emotional quality of a slow, flowing roll to suddenly tightening up all over. As people continue to develop their movement with dynamics, they may find themselves carried to a different level, perhaps even to standing. I encourage them to explore where the movement takes them in space.
At a point when participants seem comfortable with their own creativity and are beginning to generate their own personal responses to my simple questions, I might introduce music. Music will profoundly affect the space, often suggesting common emotions and associations. This helps facilitate our interactions with one another. I encourage these interactions with directives such as: “Notice who you are with. How might other people be influencing your movement? Notice how interacting with another person can expand your movement vocabulary. You may find yourself doing a movement you would never have thought of by yourself.”
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