I'm starting to realize that stilling myself is much different than stopping myself. As I've been recently hell-bent on slowing down (how's that for cross-purposes?), the mental picture I've carried with me resembles that film trick where a camera revolves around someone frozen in place while a million things are moving in super-fast motion all around them. It's dizzying and a bit nauseating. So while tussling with the idea of how I can take it all a bit slower, it's dawned on me that I'm afraid if I'm still I'll disappear, while if I execute a full-stop, it's an action move that people will notice, squealing tires and all.
Which brings me to my other realization of this weekend: I'm an exhibitionist. I like to be watched. I arrived at these moments from a couple of different side streets. First: an observation made by a new claSsmate to my friend L after seeing me dance in class for the first time. She used the words still and needs to be more and I thought, Damn, if a woman who just saw me for the first time ever can see that in a darkened room in three minutes then she's either incredibly observant (no doubt) or, I'm obviously struggling against myself even when I think I'm slowing down (uh, that, too). Then: B, of my merry band of dance luvahs, wrote to me about finding comfort while dancing in darkened corners or completely out of the light, so this weekend I entertained the notion that I'd try just that. Oh, hell, no. I had a gnarly inner tug-o-war going on between my ego and...whatever it is that's opposite the ego...I guess Freud would say the id. I guess I would say whatever lies beneath. Basically, when the music started I found myself crawling right into a place where I could be seen. I also noticed how hard it was for me to not wonder what those watching were thinking. (And then I was mad at myself for thinking about it.) For a long while, during both the classes I took, it became one large cluster-f*&k in my head as my look-at-me desire drove me on. I had a hard time not thinking about what I looked like to the others. Hoping they noticed how deeply I was diving into myself...which of course was far from the truth, since I was instead smacking my brain against the bottom of my ego's kiddie pool. I actually started to repeat to myself, There's no one here watching you. Which only sort of worked. Overall, this was frustrating...and necessary.
I also think this realization is rearing its head now more than ever because I'm with a whole new group of classmateS and I'm suddenly insecure about how I'm going to be received. (And, as usual, this mirrors ongoing moments lived outside the studio as well.) I know that if I keep giving over my power to the movements and music that get a rise, I'll stay stuck in the emotional quicksand that's holding me in place. If I'm still, dance to my muse, the one that really truly lets my breath infuse my body and respond to or against the music, I'll have a chance to move out of the mire and into some clear water. Even if I'm only floating. Even if the only thing I move for a full three minutes is my pinkie, that's a bigger space than my platform boots could ever cover as long as it's authentic. (My boots have carried me to some very real and kick-ass places, but I don't want them to become armor. I want them to remain enhancement.)
When these discoveries got noisy in my head this weekend, my first instinct was to just stop dancing altogether. Stop taking classes and pretending I'm breaking through to somewhere. Give it up and just run my miles. Naturally this too suggested my ego was skewering me by pinning me to the spot so I wouldn't move at all. But there is no there, there. Only a girl frozen in time. If still waters really do run deep, then I'll trust that I can swim and welcome the space, that by submerging I won't drown, I can go under, but I won't disappear, it's all my choice.
i loved this line: "i know that if i keep giving over my power to the movements and music that get a rise, i'll stay stuck in the emotional quicksand that's holding me in place."
ReplyDeletenot sure if this is relevant to you, at all, but a few months ago-- well, i guess almost 8 months ago or so now? i was having these really, really depressing and sad and vulnerable dances (maybe they didn't look that way? but they sure felt that way). it felt like something needed to come out of my chest and i'd be writhing around on the floor and just kinetic and moving all the time? it was something painful wanting to come out but that couldn't, almost like a push and pull. i didn't work through it in the studio, i worked through that in life... i realized that something was really wrong, week after week, and i knew what it was and when i finally made choices to change things, my dance changed instantaneously. i've found that now, i am truly content to move through stillness in my body or in a song. i can stay on the floor and just do a couple humps or cat pounces for literally an entire song and still feel fulfilled. sometimes you can't impose stillness on your movement if you're not feeling it in your life.