Dance of LIFE

“To dance is to be in tune with the steps of life.”

_Sasha Azevedo

What is it that you want out of life? Deep down are we all not really seeking to be connected to life through love, to enjoy life with peace of mind and experience life with joy?

Since March 2020 it seems as if we have been thrown into an abyss of fear. Sadly some are still lost in there, while others have slowly emerged. I believe that dance has been a powerful way to claim back our life: to move from fear towards the light. Of course, it is not easy; there are always events around us that remind us we are living within a pandemic. But we always have a choice on how we interact with life. We can choose to close down and banish our hearts to the space of fear. Or, we can take courage and learn to live within the adversity.

The call to action has been the dance. The weapons to fight fear have been the dance. And, the road to reclaiming life has been the dance.

I reflect back on the past two years and am honoured to have witnessed courage, and through the dance to have witnessed the reclaiming of joy. I have marvelled at hearts that open and fly. I have been moved by hearts that have reached out to connect with love.

Dance has made this all possible – the call to action is, dance, to reclaim life, dance to move from fear to joy, and dance to empower ourselves.

_Christos Daskalakos

dance FREEDOM

“On the other side of fear, lies freedom.”

Dance brings freedom.

The first freedom we experience when we start to move is that we actually are able to dance. That we are in control of our own experience and that we can give expression to everything we feel. No one can really tell us how to move. They can suggest but ultimately the dance is ours. Through this we can feel total responsibility – for our dance, and for all our actions. This lets us be free from all feelings of victimhood, that others are pulling the strings and we are merely puppet dancers. We are not.

The second freedom we experience is that no one else can feel what we are feeling in our body. That our life is unique to us and even though it may seem that others are having similar experience, our experience of life is our experience of life. This gives us the feeling of being special, of having value and of being able to offer our individual contributions to life. We do have a purpose, and that is to be ourselves – to dance our own dances.

The third freedom we experience is escaping the limitations of we experience of life when we are stuck in the mind. When we dance and connect with our body we open up a wider communication with our self and with life. We are sensitised to the subtle messages we receive from our body. Dance also sensitises our perceptions of the world around us. We are fully connected, fully awake and fully alive.

_Christos Daskalakos

Dance of Vitality ~ catching a "second wind"

“Those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.”

_Alexander Pope

I am amazed at how often in life we find our second wind in the dance. We enter the studio tired and often physically and mentally exhausted. Once we connect with the music and relax, the generative power of dance creates the energy for us to reconnect with the flow of life easily again.

As we near the end of the year and head for the BIG HOLIDAYS it sometimes feels like we are doing the final lap of a long-distance race. The end is in sight and we need that second wind to give us that little extra impetus to reach the finishing line. It may seem counterintuitive – but dance! Don’t give in to fatigue and stop moving. That just reinforces the situation. We need to change from low to high energy states which we can do with dance.

Through the dance, we can find new life and energy when we just let go the buzzing head and focus on the pleasure of being present in the here and now –which is what the dance offers us. The joy that dance offers us overrides everything. It’s almost as if we are inflated with enthusiasm, fun, and a wonderful surge of energy; finding our “second wind”.

_Christos Daskalakos

THIS is your dance

“If you hit a wall, climb over it, crawl under it, or dance on top of it.”

The dance you are dancing now is YOUR dance!

So often we look elsewhere in life for answers. The past can overwhelm our judgement, while the future can forever be elusive. When we dance we are here, now, in presence. That means that the dance we are dancing now is the only thing that exists. We are dancing our dance in the moment.

Being in presence means that we have full access to our creative force. We are not looking to the past or future for solutions. If we are not looking to the past or future in judgment; we are in presence, responding to what is here now.

Being in presence means that we draw on our innate wisdom when we interact with life. We find our answers in the here-now, in direct response to life in the moment. We do not hack out old patterns neither do we let future expectations inhibit our decisions.

Being in the dance means that we are in presence. We respond to the music, we move spontaneously, and the dance unfolds naturally. This is a lesson we can take into life, to listen, to be spontaneous, to unleash our creativity. Dance by letting go. Dance in the spirit of play. Dance spontaneously. And then wisdom and creativity emerge to surprise and delight us. Life, when we dance like this, is pure joy.

_Christos Daskalakos

DANCE: The Oddity of Ordinariness

“Those who dance are thought mad by those who hear not the music.”

_Chinese Proverb

In this world where everyone is trying so desperately to be something – to make a mark – to discover their purpose; embracing the ordinariness of just being human is considered odd. So often we seek the extraordinary that we forget to take pleasure in the ordinary. If we look around we see that a simple flower, a simple coffee, a simple smile, can be the source of immense joy and pleasure.

I realise this in the dance. Often the dances that allow us to go deep are the most ordinary. Breathing, pulsating, moving gently to the rhythm; all give us access to deep connection. Through the simple dance, we can connect with great sensitivity to ourselves. This is because we don’t have our attention distracted by dance acrobatics, dramatic emotion, and the fascination of ever being more novel. Of course, these have their place, and life is about balance and harmony.

However sometimes we can connect with ease, dance gently, and have the most profound experience. At the end of the day, any dance that allows us to connect fully to our self, open our hearts has the ability to transform the most ordinary, into the most extraordinary.

_Christos Daskalakos