Movin' Easy Dancewear

Dance is a consensual art form.  The bees do it when they have something to celebrate or to communicate.  Some bacteria do it when enough of them show up and they all begin to glow in neon colors.  Authentic Movement dancers come together as a group, close their eyes and dance to their hearts content.

When an audience enters the picture, consensual dance shows itself in full force.  Avante Guard dancers agree with their audience that they have free reign to explore and anything goes.  Not anything, of course.

There is mutual consent between dancer and audience on the worlds they are exploring together.  The audience is agreeing to go to the dancer’s world no matter how surprising, disgusting or even boring it might be.

Audience and dancer are on a consensual journey.  They are exploring a world together.  For some they venture into unknown space, for others they are exploring the extremes of a specific form whether it be Ballet, Rumba, or Contemporary.

Dancer and audience then become co-creators as the dancer explores and the audience responds by engaging or going numb.  When the audience can taste every moment like a fine meal they are on the edge of their seats experiencing  anticipation and delight along with the dancers.  It is at these times that the dancer brings all of their energy and imagination to meet the audience attention and excitement.

The level of expertise and prowess that is acceptable is also by mutual consent.  The parents are ecstatic with a different level of skill for their four year old than for a teen youth troupe.  Beginning ballroom dancers are appreciated for their level of skill in the same way a novice bowler would be encouraged at the bowling alley.

For all dancers, they are making a huge commitment just getting on the stage.  As audience we pay the price, we commit our full attention, and we applaud because we are there to build a world with them.

As audience we are consenting to be present during this demanding journey that we all face.  We are committing to join in a world of hope where dancers choose every moment to meet their own determination and passion.  And we the audience are shaping the dancer’s work as our attention turns on or turns off.  Either way is a learning for the performer as long as we consent to stay the course of the journey.

I am constantly amazed watching dancers who do the most difficult moves and with so much brightness as if they are savoring every single second of their dancing.

Where does the dancer go to find such a blinding light of passion and brilliant anticipation?  That is the question for the consummate professional and yet we all know the place, at least in quick glimpses.

The dancer trains to return to that place where the entire brain opens and every cell of the body prepares to engage.  The dancer stands on a precipice of the overpowering imagination that demands a complete union with the dancer’s determination.

It is at this juncture that the dancer learns moment by moment to embrace and hold the hand of the creator in a special way.  The words work and frustration and passage come into play.  And it is here that the dancer must learn to nurture and honor their own being that is given to them as a gift to participate in the dance.  It is here that the dancer must embrace themselves while they welcome the lightening fast and the thunderously slow exploration of at least six dimensions in space.

And how can we as audience or friend grasp any of these extraterrestrial journeys?  Oh yes, of course, we are human as well.  We come to the same juncture every moment and make our choice toward delightful command, toward humble determined effort, and toward the nurtured embrace of all that we call good.

We all know the moment.  It is when we pull ourselves up to our tallest and take a breath like we really mean it and our next step, our next word comes totally from everything that we are.  Yes, we pass a lot of those moments by and we try to pull up past memory as if those moments were a limited edition and not available to us always.

Dance is only a teacher of how to bring our entire being to face the beauty and the darkness in every moment of this life.  But it takes a moment by moment choice for both the professional and the novice.

So You Think You Can Dance auditions keep refering to what is and is not dancing.  So what is dancing if it is not wiggling and jiggling, jiving and rocking?

Everyone dances every day.  We can interpret movement that way.  Then every move we make is a kind of dance whether we are alone or in a group.  The movement of our cells, the cars patterns on the highway, the opening of a flower, we can interpret them all as dance.

Yet when do we say someone is dancing.  The baby bounces and we say they are dancing.  The business suit person jerks head and chest to rock music and we know they have let loose to dance.

When I enter the delight and the passion of movement, I experience it as dance.  Otherwise I am only doing a nervous jiggle or shifting back and forth unconsciously.

Dancing in public and with others is like all other activity; it needs some kind of structure in order to participate.  The more we perfect the structure, the more we participate whether we are dancing with Ellen, doing free form Ecstatic Dance or a specific form of Hip Hop.

The ultimate distinction is whether I am exploring or not.  Dancing is not real for me unless I am exploring my connection to my body, to my emotions and to whoever is dancing with me.

Experience with the tools of dance then become essential to my exploration, force and speed and rhythm and direction and use of space up down over and around, all to discover the circular and the linear, the powerful and the tender.

And then there is the pulling together all of that learning from dance so that every moment has that same level of commitment and delight and exploration.

Yeah, right, dance is not all there is.  That brightness, that brilliance of feeling and movement shows up in other places….

well like the CEO of a great company, the body does have to go along with the brilliance of intention and yes it would be interesting to follow that dance…

and of course the momma and the poppa cuddling their baby, nothing can match the unity of those moves to quiet and excite the child, that dance I love…

well there is the gymnist and the diver and the skater and the martial artist but you know they all say when they come to dance that there is nothing comparable to dancing in their skilled sport…and let’s see, what else?

Why do I look to the dancer?  For the brightness of course.  There is no other brighter light than the open hearted dancer.  What is demanded is so great, to go completely with every part of everything, the brain, the imagination, the cells, the hope, everything that adds to a creation of a new world every moment.  And getting there is of course grueling and discouraging and demanding more than is humanly possible.

And there before it all is the open hearted dancer, a bright beacon in those eyes leading any who would choose to follow their movements and believe that a new powerful world is being created each moment of our lives.

Argentine Tango requires fabulous initiative by both men and women to connect totally with each other and to almost attack the space with subtlety and finesse.

Seeking an expression for their Christian faith, Living Springs Arts in Austin, Texas uses the simplest language of Hip Hop.  They rev the motor of the sports car from zero to 80 to blow out the pipes, steering humble hearts by down shifting into deep gratitude.

So You Think You Can Dance 2008 contestants Will and Twitch took Hip straight through their roaring machines to a level of classical music.

See also a quirky definition of Hip Hop in blogs at Hip Hop Speak to Me

Hip Hop and its family of dances are a way to check the gauges of life to see if the engine is still at the top of its passion.  Popping, ticking, breaking, and bucking are ways to kick the tires of the old speed mobile to see if there is enough pressure there to blow out the pipes, clearing any clogging smut hanging onto attitude, anger, fear, self pity, and coffing up any contempt for intimacy.