DANCE - More real than real?

“Dreams are more real than reality itself, they’re closer to the self.”

_Gao Xingjian

How often do we hear artists being referred to as dreamers? Sadly to many people, the arts are seen as superfluous, as a nice to have, or maybe as just belonging to others. This hasn’t always been so. From our earliest beginnings, people crawled into the darkest of caves to create rock paintings. The oldest musical instrument is a 60,000-year-old flute. Rock shelter paintings in India, depict dance painted 10,000-years-ago. One would have imagined all these ancient ancestors to have had more important things to occupy their minds – like hunting for food and making sure they themselves are not eaten as food. And yet, there is something in the human spirit that leads us to engage in expressing ourselves through various artistic means.

Our modern-day predicament arises out of the fact that we have separated art out and defined it as distinct activity. It wasn’t always so. Art, music, dance were intrinsically part of life. They represented the balance between rational and creative minds, between conscious and altered states, between knowing and dreaming.

More and more, our body is being defined and accepted as the seat of the subconscious – the realm that is also recognised as being the driving force behind our behaviours, emotions and the way we experience life. To enrich our experience we would do well to delve into this dreamworld, to explore and uncover the deepest of our psyche. This is not a path that can be traveled by our conscious mind or rational thought. This is the path most familiar to the arts. Dance being an exceptionally powerful one as it involves every part of our being, physical, emotional and creative self.

Dance opens up the way to access our authentic self, residing below the surface composed of our chattering mind, stories we tell about ourselves, and beliefs about the world. When we dance and let go of any direction and control, we are able to let go into the realm of the subconscious, to explore and retrieve the origins of life. These are moments of great insight, healing and learning. Each person has their own journey to dance – but ultimately is also part of the great cosmic dance – life itself.

The question then is answered. Is the life around us all there is? Are we not constantly finding ways to limit our experiences to what we think is useful in the moment? Could dance not lift the veil on a reality that not only compels us to survival, but a reality more real than real, that invites us to dream and become co-creators of our own experience?

_Christos Daskalakos

Magical Presence in the Dance

“One of the best feelings in the world is knowing that 

your presence and absence both mean something to someone.”

_Unknown

When we dance in a group there are a number of dynamics that take place that contributes to a positive effect. The presence of the others firstly offers a certain amount of protection and containment. When we trust our fellow dancers we know that we can let go into the dance and that whatever takes place is going to be fine.

The dance brings out our best – we are here and now, we are totally present. In this space, we can experience the other fully as much as we are also be experienced by the other at all levels. There is an exchange of energy and vitality. We mirror each other and our presence is a gift we bring to each other in the dance.

Over time as acceptance and non-judgement evolve we establish a trust and familiarity that permits brings out an authenticity that allows us to go deeper into the dance. Through the dance, we weave a human tapestry that creates social cohesion. We establish beautiful relationships and experience the feelings of belonging.

Dance is the beautiful gift that has evolved to allow us to experience our humanity through the other.

_Christos Daskalakos

EMERGING from the DANCE

“Every dance is and gives ecstasy.”

_Curt Sachs

It is an accepted fact that dance is an ideal activity to improve our physical, emotional, and mental state. Physically increased heart rate and circulation may improve muscle tone, lung capacity and nourish the brain. However, beyond this, when our body functions optimally, our hormones and other information-carrying molecules not only stimulate the body at a cellular level but also carry information about how we are feeling and experiencing the world. Our body responds to our feelings and in time will create habitual fallback positions. We then find that our experiences of life are based on default mechanisms – whether these be emotional mechanisms or the non-stop narrative that runs through our brains.

For many the body represents the subconscious; this means that often it is experienced separately from conscious thinking and direction. It is difficult to change the functioning of the body from a top-down approach, especially when it comes to our habitual patterns of behaviour.

What this means is that if we want to change the habitual ways in which we experience or feel about life we need to program new information into the system. Dance not only releases endorphins that improve our mood but over time can have a lasting impact in changing our default position. In addition to this, the brain is stimulated and new patterns of behaviour and feelings emerge.

Emerging from the dance is a new person with improved mood, vitality, and positivity. As self-confidence increases another emergent quality is self-esteem. As we begin to change through the dance our focus shifts. We notice our connection to others and in those magical moments when we surrender completely to the dance, cosmic bliss emerges sending us into states of ecstasy.

_Christos Daskalakos

DANCE ~ WIDE OPEN

"Bring attention to your everyday movements 

and find the dance in them.”

_Daniel Odier

We communicate our expressions and intentions in the world around us through the body as much as we do through words. Usually, our attention is focused outwards but as much as we communicate with others, we can communicate with our inner self through the body too. This communication takes place through gestures, postures, and movements. Although some of these are culture-specific, there is a whole repertoire of universal human movement and gestures that are common to all.

This past weekend we experienced a powerful retreat that worked with the body, dance, and movement to open up a path to our authentic essence of being. However, what I noticed was how quickly the dance was able to transcend any semblance of separation among the group and create a beautiful space of connection. These were simple dances of softly reaching out and connecting with the other through the hands and gentle movements that facilitated a deep sensitivity in our own body but also in the connection to others. Jonti Searll, extended this connection through the hands as a way of awakening the bliss body. These simple yet powerful moments opened up the possibilities of meaningful connection and deep interrelationship, and conversations of the heart

Dance gives us the tools to have these conversations - dance does not only have a technical aspect - learning steps, training the body, or perfecting movements. Yes these are techniques that teach us how to use our bodies and movement but there is a deeper and more powerful aspect to dance. When we become aware of the energy we put into movement, the speed and direction of each expression we see the subtle nuances of communication and expression contained in each gesture, each movement – the dance. These elements of dance may appear obvious or simple, but in a dance movement they become the elements of expression. Moving fast in a forward direction feels and says something different from say moving slowly in a backward direction. Consciousness expands as we become more aware of our body, its movement, its expression in the dance.

To dance wide open is beautiful to see and also witness in the others. When we let go and allow our movements to expand and express freely, we also expand as people. When we expand into the world our inner world also expands opening up our heart and allowing the natural universal energy of life to flow.

We then take these lessons into life and as Daniel Odier invites us, we learn to find the dance in everything - that does not mean to go dancing through the streets. Rather this connects to that other aspect of dance which is about the ability to be creative, to give expression, and have a conversation through our wholeness of being - integrating mind into the body so that our thinking and our feeling find a natural point of integrity and alignment with our authentic self.

_Christos Daskalakos