DANCE - more real than real?

“Great dancers are not great because of their technique;

they are great because of their passion.”

_Marth Graham

Dance has been accompanying our human evolution from way back when fire was still a novelty. It’s pervasiveness and resilience against all odds lie in its ability to communicate ideas, express emotions, embody cultural significance, forge connections, and facilitate personal and collaborative growth. Dance is not only symbolic or representational but when we engage consciously to embody our experience, it becomes life itself. Through the body, we have the lived experience of our connection to ourselves, others, and the world.

Dance takes place in real time, real space and with a real body. The focus we bring to the dance augments our reality. The dance becomes a heightened form of our everyday experiences by including all aspects of ourselves in a moment of magic that transcends the mundane. As much as we take ordinary physical actions and translate them into fluid expressive movement, we take our relationships to life and transform them into works of personal and authentic creativity.

Ultimately whether we consider dance “more real than real” is subjective and depends on the context. But when we are in a state of consciousness that transforms and dissolved the boundaries that outline the dance, we merge, flow, and move in a reality that can sometimes feel more real than real.

_Christos Daskalakos

the dance is the dance

“Everyone speaks the same silence.”

_xos

We have all traveled a path drawn from a common human experience. At some level, we share one collective story. Yet in our lives, this story plays out individually. Each of our journeys is contained within a specific context which makes the expression of our particular life unique to each of us. In this regard, this individual story is your truth, your story is real. It’s hard to subscribe to the abstract philosophic-religious view that life is an illusion. What IS an illusion, what is not real is believing that we are our individual stories. We hold onto them in memory and speech repeating them over and over to confirm to ourselves that they are real. And through this repetition, we identify and become our stories.

There is a part of the human journey that is our own individual aspect yet there is also a part that is universal. There are seven billion stories across the world, yet they are all experienced and felt within a common and universal range of human emotions. There is no separate “happiness” for you and another for me, as much as there is no separate “sadness”. The experience that gets us to either of these or any other emotion is unique, but the emotions themselves are universal. This is why as humans we have the capacity to connect to empathy.

This is where the power of dance steps, leaps and glides into the picture. Dance modalities such as Biodanza are therapeutic not because they engage with the individual stories. They are therapeutic because they connect with the universal emotional part. These emotions are held in the body as invariants – holding patterns that give rise to a particular emotion. When this expression or experience of an emotion is blocked or suppressed the body too becomes stiff, rigid, and lifeless. The scientific fact is that the more we hold on to real trauma, for example, the more dissociated we are from our bodies. The same applies to all emotional experiences. Dance works because it is an integrative process of music that evokes emotion - and movements that shift, transform or transmutes the physical holding patterns of these emotions. Dance is not a symbolic representation of our life experience; in the dance, we embody our life experiences in an integrative manner in real time and space. Dance is living life itself. This is why when we dance healing takes place at a fundamental level that brings a moment of transtasis in our lives - we emerge into a totally different experience of ourselves either through this healing process of release or the transformative magic of personal self-development.

_Christos Daskalakos

dance ENTHUSED

"To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful."

- Agnes De Mille

There are moments in the dance when movement and rhythm are mesmerising – transporting us into altered states of consciousness which some even call, “Divine Madness”. The notion of being possessed by the gods is in essence that quality of dance that can evoke a sense of wonder and awe of that which ignites the human spirit. To dance is to be transported out of the profane into sacred spaces of deep cosmic connection.

When the ego mind is out of the way, we are able to surrender ourselves to the music and allow our bodies to become the vessels of pure expression. This beautiful transcendent state is where the boundaries of the mundane world dissolve, and we are transported into the realms of pure life. This flow state has an otherworld feeling which we often equate to the spiritual – the divine. No wonder then that the ancient Greeks in Dionysian ecstasy danced into a state of frenzy which they identified with being possessed and overwhelmed by that god.

As we let go into the dance we shed inhibitions and self-consciousness allowing those dormant energies of self-expression to emerge, to take form, and to move into our awareness. Banished are feelings of low self-esteem, poor body image, and any inadequacies. Dance illuminates the wonder of who we are. Graceful movements transform into moments of beauty and artistry that inspire and captivate our senses. This somewhat mystical and mysterious power of dance can stir our souls and remind us of the boundless potential that lives within each of us. Through the dance, we are enthused. Enthused with ourselves. Enthused with life. Enthused by the wonder of our own existence.

_Christos Daskalakos

the language of DANCE

“If I could have said it, I shouldn’t have had to dance it.”

_Anna Pavlova

Dance reflects the hidden language of the human soul. It is core to our being and allows us to express ourselves from a space that touches us deeply. When we dance, we speak with our bodies, telling stories and sharing emotions in a way that words could never convey. The fluidity of movement becomes our voice. When we dance, we connect on a deeper level, sharing something that words can’t quite capture.

At the same time, it is a form of mediation that allows us to be fully present. As we focus on music and movement the noise of our minds is gently silenced. We cannot be thinking or planning, instead, we are spontaneously moving in the here and now. We cannot be thinking about the past or the future which frees us from the ever-repeating stories we hold onto. We’re just dancing – we’re just living.

And what does this dance mean?

Does it matter?

We find meaning and value in the experience, in the dance, in the excitement of a vibrant animated body. We don’t have to explain it to anyone. We can’t explain it to anyone. Not even to ourselves. Our dances become intense experiences of life, they let our human soul explode into the world so that when we look up to the stars, we can just nod with a knowing that has always been part of this eternal marvel we call life.

_Christos Daskalakos

dance in MYSTERY

“Dance fearlessly in the beauty of the unknown,

for within the mystery lies the enchantment of endless possibilities.”

The space between the person you were and the person you become is a dance. A dance filled with passion, drama, peace, and reflection. Dance arises out of the archaic story of human evolution. At the dawn of time, it gazed upon the fire, at every mystery of life, it celebrates and expresses our emotion, and in the quiet of the night, it can be a gentle murmur towards the stars.

Dance reflects the mystery of humanity. It expresses the unknown, the hidden, and the enigmatic through movement. It is an ineffable experience that brings transformation into our lived experience. No one can dance for you. No one can live your life. This connection of direct experience is the link that makes dance so powerful.

We change, we are transformed, and we develop as human beings in the dance because in the moment it presents us with elements of surprise. It facilitates unexpected transitions from one state to another. It uncovers hidden movement in fluid movement that conveys our cosmic connection through the other. We meet, we laugh, we dance, and the cosmos smiles. That is the mystery.

_Christos Daskalakos