Thursday, December 31, 2009

Beyond


Really. Seriously. This picture makes me feel as if I'm stretching for heaven upside down. I can actually feel the stretch in my hamstrings, back, arms, even toes and fingers, brain and soul when I look at this. It's a still from the movie La Danse, a most amazing film following the Paris Opera Ballet as they prepared for a recent season. My favorite choreographer featured is Wayne McGregor, and this is one move from his piece. What attracts me so much in his work is that the emotion and wonder for what the body can do isn't hidden, the sweat and elasticity it takes to achieve these movements isn't covered up at all by costumes. It's all out there. Look. See the tendons, the quiver. You can practically feel it coming off the stage.

My friend Becky, she of my merry band of dance luvuhs, suggested I keep a dance diary. Such a good idea, and after seeing this movie I scribbled something in it about how I was struck by the fact that I could see every one of the five senses being engaged with these dancers, and how I was completely transported by that connection. (Kind of the difference between seeing Showgirls and All That Jazz: while both have visible bruises all over their celluloid body, the former tries to hide them with glitter, while the latter gleefully pushes their purpleness in our face, an action I'll take any day.)

Connecting to the senses is something I've been struggling with recently in my own movement. I took a class with with an S teacher who was so prescient in reading my body that what she kept saying to me as I danced was Breathe! At one point she said Be Careful, and it took me aback. I thought, Well, yes, in fact I'm climbing up a pole, but I'm not going to fall.... After class as we talked, she explained what she'd meant: That in not breathing, I couldn't fully experience my senses and hence wasn't able to explore my movements. I was fleeing from my dance rather than wrapping around it. There was no touch for my hands and feet to feel the beauty of the floor or the pole (and we're not talking pointed toes here), my eyes (whether open or closed) were not seeing what was possible, my nose was not taking in the air to move me forward, my ears were not hearing the spaces in between the notes—the quiet and powerful spaces that speak as loudly as the bass and guitar, my mouth was not tasting the confidence that could come with all the pleasure of my movement. She was so right in that I've been running from the power in me, and as with everything I learn in the studio, these words resonate out into my whole life...the dance of my every day.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

starting

Three years ago, thereabouts, my then-husband took off cross country. Our marriage was done. I was living in the state of numb. Mind you, I'd been residing in that place for probably longer than the time it took for him to let me know we were no more. In fact, my body had taken up residence there from almost the moment we had gotten married. I figured I had gotten in enough trouble already (see I Became a Rock Journalist mention, December 29). So I traded in the intimate when we got married for: Stability. Trust. These were new entries in my relationship book.

In May of 2007, almost a year after he left and at the age of 45, I walked into the S Factor (http://sfactor.com/) studio in NYC looking for a cross-training opportunity for my first marathon. I figured some loud music and a little dancing would be the perfect balance to the pavement pounding. Get my core strong and all that. Really. I had no idea. I can't stress that enough: I had no idea...the journey I'd enter into with my body, with my soul, with my entire being and parts of me I didn't even know existed. The ones that I'd pushed down deep inside during my intimacy-void marriage. I couldn't predict the absolute bliss and terror (toggling almost equally back and forth between) that I'd go through as I dived—and continue to dive two years and seven months later—deeper into it. I suspect the it will continue to reveal itself as long as I keep going and pay attention. Sometimes that's a bitch of a thing to do, but nobody reading this will find that a surprise.

I also discovered my scrappy side when I challenged my then-employer, a large magazine publishing outfit in NYC, to reimburse me for my classes under their health club policy. When the benefits guy kept rejecting my receipts, I got him on the phone and so thoroughly kerfluffled him with the logic that he need not be scared of the fact that although he might equate the pole featured on the Web site with, uh, I don't know...a stripper, that he was not in fact supporting a new career move for me, but he was, unbeknownst to both of us, supporting my complete life change. He finally gave in and reimbursed me (this also followed on the heels of my compiling a dossier of every starlet that had appeared in every magazine published in the flagship who'd name-checked S Factor as an amazing workout...so there).

And so it began...and more on that to come.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

BackStory re: Dancing Toward...

How this began:
I asked for something of my friends in November 2009. Here's what I said (& still mean):

There is a dance workshop that’s near and dear to my heart&soul happening in LA at the S Factor studio. It’s a plunge deeper into self-discovery and a view into whether being a part of the world of dance therapy might be the next move in my life. It’s going to take a bit of magic to get there.

The reason I feel the urgency to do this now: Everyday I am reminded that the way we move toward each other in the world is a form of therapy...one that is healing, messy, shocking, necessary. A subtle dance that draws in the world or keeps it at a distance, and so often there's no notice of how we leave traces of ourselves on each other. I want to expand beyond the trace and investigate the indelible mark. Specifically, to have the opportunity to go further in sharing a form of dance that I believe inspires women to mark the world around them in an awesome way, while inspiring men to be the fabulous creatures they are as they celebrate a woman living from her strength. As that ripples out, there's just no way this world won't become a better dance floor to twirl on. To have the opportunity to be a part of that movement through educating myself in what it would take to bring this to people is the dream I'm dancing toward. One step, I think, is in LA.

Dancing Toward a Dream (update):

Where to begin?
To say, I'm grateful. (This is beyond the valley of true.)
To mention that this experiment in asking is a trip alternately terrifying and rewarding? (Hell, yeah.)
To recognize things do move in mysterious ways? (Hum along.)

So now it’s begun, and with your help there is a growing foundation (both heartfelt and financial) from which I can Dance closer to that Dream. Thank you beyond words for that!

The update is this: Due to those mysterious ways (mentioned above), the workshop I’m attending will be happening later in the year during the season of longer days and slightly balmier weather. The Smarty Pig will stay open for receiving for an extended run, the $ goal cut in half and my sense of passion and urgency still intact to keep this Dream Dancing. To be exact: whatever funds raised will go toward workshop/classes, one of the important being the intensive in LA. Through this blog I'll keep you updated (and maybe entertained) regarding all movement in that direction, along with other ramblings, photos and effluvia related to this thing we call dance.

Thank you, again!

SmartyPig link below (you can read & feel secure about this site as FDIC insured), click on the Find Friends tab (unless you're already there) and type in the e-mail address (NOTE: this is a new e-mail address): DancingTowardDream@gmail.com

https://www.smartypig.com/friends-goals



"Seek beauty. Show mutability. Move like a blaze of consciousness. Perfection is the devil. Express the eroticism of gravity."--Karole Armitage,

http://thepi.prorsumimagist.com/?p=673

Falling


So although as a girl and into teenage-hood I wanted to be a dancer (of course! along with that other little-girl dream almost non-negotiable: to own a pony...but that's another story altogether, made up for quite nicely by riding other things, er, like bicycles and stuff), I realize in retrospect that this had a lot to do with the clothing...the ratty kind...leg warmers, sweaters wrapped around arms and torso, scuffed leather ballet shoes (pink or black). While I took a minor in dance in junior college, my discipline to avoid drunken nights at the bar in order to get up early and have my body go through the rigors was not at all up to the task, so I became a rock journalist instead. Totally logical.

But it's also become clear, having found myself back in the world of movement well beyond the age when I'd entertain dreams of being a part of any corps de ballet, that experience is the thing that moves inside out. That every moment I've lived has been processed and is now expressed through the moves I make inside a dance studio. Most especially a darkened studio in NYC where expressing the beauty of every curve, thrust, im- and ex-plosion is nurtured and spurred on. I also recognize it when I see dance. In this almost-over year of 2009, I was lucky enough to see some live performances that left me shaken. Moved me to tears. Made me want to run away and join the circus, so to speak.

So I'm left speechless by the power of movement and what better way to be speechless than to start a blog about having no words. To dance toward it, stumble on and around it, stub my proverbial toes--all of them. Then hold it, fall down and breathe it back to life. I'll give it a try. Whatever that it is.

This weekend I saw an Alvin Ailey performance with my merry band of dance luvahs and discovered that dissonent pairings that tell a story speak to me: bodies bent, twirling, bound, flying and stopped midair make me crazy-happy. See the link below for my favorite of the night: "Episodes" and take in what Ulysses Dove, the choreographer, says about what he wanted to express with this piece: "Life so fully lived that each episode in life is complete." And away we go...

http://thepi.prorsumimagist.com/?p=673