dance FOCUS

“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.”

_George Lucas

Dance is expansive, dance is fun, and dance opens up lots of possibilities. However, in this creative chaos, dance also requires the dancer to have the ability to really focus. If we are not focused on the dance and what is taking place in the present, we may just fall over! To dance is to inhabit a body that is in continuous movement and ever changing positions.

For example, as we move through space we are experiencing different perspectives of our immediate surroundings, the room, the people and ourselves. And yet there is a part of us that retains focus so that we don’t bump into people or dissolve into chaos.

Focus becomes a key element. As we focus on our dancing body, we inevitably expand our awareness to feeling and thinking. The focus we bring to our self is integrated. Sitting behind a desk engages our thinking but our body cramps, stiffens and distorts in its limited range of movement. Listening to a piece of music may evoke feelings but if we remain motionless the emotions are literally stuck in our body, with nowhere to go. Inevitably when we bring everything into alignment through the dance our focus on self is expanded, we learn, we heal and we connect with creative insight.

_Christos Daskalakos