Dance/Contact Improvisation

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    When Does Art Beget Art? Spirit Generate Spirit?

    ByElizabeth

    Who goes past oblivious and uncaring?  Who goes past preoccupied?  Who takes a brief glance and continues on?  Who stops to watch?  Who discusses and invites?  Who makes a special pilgrimage? Who is inspired to create by the creative offering?

    Photos from last week of Doug Aiken’s Song\1 at the Hirshhorn.

     

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    “Seriously”

    ByElizabeth

    A friend from the DC Sunday contact improv jam (one of my favorite places to play) sent this link showing a clip from a documentary in progress about the importance of play to our health.  One of the things that I love most about Anusara yoga is that John Friend has always described its practice as being “seriously playful.”  I was born serious nature and have worked hard in my adulthood to learn to play spontaneously, and what is being offered here resonates for me.

    This is a long clip, but well worth the time.  Anusara yogis, notice how familiar some of it sounds.  Enjoy!

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    Square Dancing (and Spacial Awareness)

    ByElizabeth

    Last night, I hopped on the bus and went from Capitol Hill to Columbia Heights to go square dancing. I haven’t square danced since elementary school, when we had two week sessions every year from third through sixth grade (I doubt, somehow, that they are still teaching square dancing as a needed physical exercise these days). It was interesting how much of the kinesthetic memory was still there, but it would not have mattered if I had not remembered. There were a lot of beginners, and the emphasis was on enthusiasm and enjoyment, not on getting it exactly right.

    One thing that was noticeable about both the complete beginners and those who were very interested in demonstrating that they could do fancy variations was how little awareness there was of how those dancers related to the room as a whole or their squares. Even if there was some awareness of their partners, the beginners were to busy trying to figure out what to do at all to be able to think outside themselves or their partner, much less outside of their own square to the relationship of their square to those around them. Those that were eager to demonstrate their prowess took up as much space as they wanted to do their own dance, making it so that others had to move out of their way.

    The truly skilled and aware dancers fostered the fullness of the dance, mindful of their own technique, their relationship to their partners and squares, and how their square fit into the dance hall as a whole, thus optimizing the freedom of the flow of the dance for everyone.

    I think this dynamic in the dance reflects how we want to live as an individual within the fabric of being. If we are sluggish with ignorance, we will trod on others, when we could have a better relationship by making the time and effort to learn how to live more rightly and in alignment with the whole. When we just strive to show how great we are, heedless of how we impact other beings, we also disrupt the flow of being. To be truly engaged in the wondrous dance of being in a way that makes not only our own lives fuller, but enriches and enhances life around us, we must not only study and practice for ourselves and develop sensitivity and awareness in our intimate relationships and our relationships to our family and community, but also understand and act from a cognizance of the flow of life and energy outside our immediate world.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    Expanding Your Edge

    ByElizabeth

    Thursday night,  I took a dance improvisation workshop at Dance Exchange, the second in a series of three workshops.  One of the exercises we did was in groups of two.  The game was to do simultaneous improvisation.  Without designating a particular person as a leader, each dancer was to try and stay in synchronized movement with his or her partner.   When we were done with the exercise, some of the dancers talked about their goal having been to be in control of the lead or trying to push their partner past his or her edge.  I had been innocently (or perhaps naively) unaware of these dynamics, as I had been seeking to find where the dance could be the leader rather than either partner.

    After the workshop, when I was walking to the metro with the teacher and another participant, both of whom are performers in their 20s, I raised the issue of people trying to push others past their edge (I’d held off raising it in the group as it seemed too many were in a different space).  I said that knowing that my partner was a lot less flexible than me, though lots stronger, and knowing his competitive edge, I never would have tried to push him beyond his physical limits.

    The teacher said he liked being pushed past where it seemed like a good idea; it made him get to another place.  I agreed that it is good to try to expand, to go beyond what we think are our limits.  I have been taught, though, by my teacher John Friend, not to blow past my limits.  Rather, in the practice of Anusara yoga, we seek to be intimately and exquisitely aware of our edge at every moment, and then expand it.  The game with the partner using this paradigm would have been to find the edge and then see if the dance could expand it rather than to try and exert control or see if we could push our partner past his or her limits at our partner’s risk.   When we operate in a paradigm of straining and striving, or we push for control or try to compete with ourselves or with others, that is where we get injured.  I’ve had my share of dance injuries, I added, but to continue dancing through the decades, I cannot be blowing past my limits, though I am still growing.  I was not sure that what I said felt relevant, but I could also tell that it was information that went into the thought mix for later.