Dance Your Bones facilitator Tina shared her favourite dance music source Mondomix tonight so I'm passing it on in a new section at the bottom ... Favourite Dance Music. Check it out, only $.99 a song.
Dancing is the soulmate of music, so I'll get busy adding some music links in that section. Feel free to send me your favourite titles & links.
By the way, I checked out Dancing With the Goddess on YouTube and found Atman's great dance music so now there's a soundtrack to my blog :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpJYU8Qc_-k
It is linked down below.
Thursday 28 July 2011
Saturday 23 July 2011
The ethnicity of movement
This week while dancing, friends commented on my obvious joy of dancing to African music. A discussion followed about moving to music from different ethnic traditions and whether learning a dance style such as African (or more specifically Ghanaian or Zulu dances, as there is certainly not one "African" dance) affects how you relate to the music.
That was an interesting thought, that there might be an authentic way of moving to a particular piece of music or rhythm and that learning a style might limit your interaction with that music. I hear the voice of the individual here seeking freedom from tradition and boundaries, a very valid quest.
I have studied many different "ethnic" dance styles (and by the way, ballet is an ethnic dance for me, representing historical upper class European culture - I have had people try to tell me it is a universal dance form - boloney!). I can't say I have tried to find my own authentic way of dancing to music but rather I sought to invest my body awareness in trying to absorb how the teacher/dancer felt in her/his body so that I could feel the music the way they did. What I discovered is that there are very different ways of moving and being human.
Look at the lilt of the Celtic dances. Observe how the centre of gravity is higher in the chest and the feet keep the beat of the music and skip, as if over rocky terrain. Look at the dances from Africa, how the centre of gravity is low in the hips and how that frees the chest to beat with the rhythm, not just the feet. I feel profoundly different doing these dances, and yet I love both. I can express two different ways of being human. This is another path to freedom for me, freedom to explore the "other" from within their own cultural boundaries.
Do you have connections with different dance traditions? Have you "studied" that style or do you just like to move to it in your own way? What did you learn?
By the way, stay tuned if you are in the Peterborough area, as I will be teaming up with Mayelin Semmler to offer a modern/Afro-Cuban fusion class this fall.
That was an interesting thought, that there might be an authentic way of moving to a particular piece of music or rhythm and that learning a style might limit your interaction with that music. I hear the voice of the individual here seeking freedom from tradition and boundaries, a very valid quest.
I have studied many different "ethnic" dance styles (and by the way, ballet is an ethnic dance for me, representing historical upper class European culture - I have had people try to tell me it is a universal dance form - boloney!). I can't say I have tried to find my own authentic way of dancing to music but rather I sought to invest my body awareness in trying to absorb how the teacher/dancer felt in her/his body so that I could feel the music the way they did. What I discovered is that there are very different ways of moving and being human.
Look at the lilt of the Celtic dances. Observe how the centre of gravity is higher in the chest and the feet keep the beat of the music and skip, as if over rocky terrain. Look at the dances from Africa, how the centre of gravity is low in the hips and how that frees the chest to beat with the rhythm, not just the feet. I feel profoundly different doing these dances, and yet I love both. I can express two different ways of being human. This is another path to freedom for me, freedom to explore the "other" from within their own cultural boundaries.
Do you have connections with different dance traditions? Have you "studied" that style or do you just like to move to it in your own way? What did you learn?
By the way, stay tuned if you are in the Peterborough area, as I will be teaming up with Mayelin Semmler to offer a modern/Afro-Cuban fusion class this fall.
Friday 8 July 2011
Wounds
Dancing, meditation in movement, has been very healing for me. It has helped me to identity where wounds lie in my body so I can start to become conscious of them and enter the healing process.
For some time, I have been dealing with a wound from the age of 20. Caught in a political battle between my dance school and the Royal Academy of Dance, I had a ballet examiner tell me "I would never be a teacher". No wound lies deeper than one that is closest to your divine mission, and mine is most definitely teaching. I was trying to become a dance teacher and when she failed me in that exam, a piece of me broke and did not repair for a very long time. I even quit dancing for a number of years.
I lost all consciousness of that wound for a very long time and it went deep into my body. A healer helped me to locate it last year in the right side of my chest, where my "wing" attaches. This represents my yin or feminine side for me. I have been working on reparing this breach so that I do not continue to have to live solely out of my male side.
While dancing, I have been balancing myself, thinking of my right side, flying around the room like a bird. Last night my body said "You can fly straight now" and I know the work is done.
Do you have experiences of healing while dancing?
For some time, I have been dealing with a wound from the age of 20. Caught in a political battle between my dance school and the Royal Academy of Dance, I had a ballet examiner tell me "I would never be a teacher". No wound lies deeper than one that is closest to your divine mission, and mine is most definitely teaching. I was trying to become a dance teacher and when she failed me in that exam, a piece of me broke and did not repair for a very long time. I even quit dancing for a number of years.
I lost all consciousness of that wound for a very long time and it went deep into my body. A healer helped me to locate it last year in the right side of my chest, where my "wing" attaches. This represents my yin or feminine side for me. I have been working on reparing this breach so that I do not continue to have to live solely out of my male side.
While dancing, I have been balancing myself, thinking of my right side, flying around the room like a bird. Last night my body said "You can fly straight now" and I know the work is done.
Do you have experiences of healing while dancing?
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