The Body, Dance, and its Rhythms

I listen to polychronic rhythms from Ghana, India, and Flamenco, and the rhythms connect me, ground me, allow my mind to stop thinking in order to feel, to embody the moment. And then the moment ends, the music stops, the rhythm cuts off. My mind slams back into my chest and grasps tight, the yearn to freely move without the burden from judgement. I've come a long way since performing in professional and collegiate dance settings. I feel much more embodied, much more grounded and centered into myself with my own movement practices.

How interesting it is to feel more grounded and stronger as a dancer after leaving.

After leaving the structure of technique class, rehearsals, and performance I am more freely able to move my body as it dictates, not based on what someone else asks of me.

I'm learning to decode the body, leaning into physical sensation, listening to what the body needs, allowing it to change day to day. Sometimes the drive for speed and strength, sometimes a soft flow, other times complete stillness. Impulse changes, as does the flow of life. The way to stay connected to this flow is to allow the body to be carried by it.

I work on this myself by using my movement practices as meditation. Focusing on the sensations of the body and the connection of breath as I write a stream of consciousness, as I doodle across a page, as I dance across a floor, as I jog down the street, continuously trying to not edit the stream even though that little voice in the back of my mind constantly tries to push to the front. The act of doing without editing, simply allowing the process to flow. Doing in any form while being present is a meditation, is grounding and revitalizing.

The key is doing while present since we're always in such a state of hurry and action. Turning back to listening to the body.

As a dancer, I learned anatomy through embodiment. I learned about my body through movement, through dance. I learned kinesiology, anatomy in motion, as embodied anatomy. I know how to help my clients because of the movement and the injuries I have worked through myself from years of dance classes and performances. Yet I wasn't ever fully embodied until I stopped performing, until I stopped moving for other people. Ironically, as a child I always said I would never perform because I only danced for myself.

Dancers know the body intimately, and also not at all.

In structured Western dance, we are taught how to do, yet not how to listen. We are adept movers in dance technique, but often not able to hear the body or feel the music. As young dancers our goal is to look the best, not to be present, or to feel the breath of the movement.

Ballet dancers are so anxious, with beautiful motion, but unable to pay attention to our bodies in the moment. We are taught to lift, lift, lift, and complete a range of motion, no matter what sensation appears. It's always about how to do what is asked of our bodies from another person's perspective. And if we don't, someone else always will be able to. We're not special and yet at the same time there is a constant drive to be that one special dancer.

We know how to push our bodies like an athlete. We know how to move with softness paired with strength and embody emotions like an artist. We put ourselves center stage, open and vulnerable for thousands of stares to see. But the biggest judge is the one set of eyes who can't see us. Ourselves.

It is our own eyes, our own voice that holds us back.

So, we know the body, intensely, through movement, yet we aren't taught to embody the dance, to center, to be present, only to do what is asked as perfectly as possible. In rehearsals and classes, constantly fighting a battle between anxiety in my chest, a hold in the top of my gut, and the yearning to be able to freely move without the nagging voice of judgement holding myself back.

This is where meditation, centering, grounding comes to be of importance. It's vital to bring our attention to the space here, now. Presence.

Learning how to be present comes with time, to heal the wounds that small but powerful judgmental voice cuts deep. To face the fear. I was never fearful of standing centerstage in the spotlight with hundreds of spectators. I was more afraid of standing in the studio without being given choreography to complete. To have to improvise, to show myself, to be vulnerable. However, facing the fear allows it to release its hold, increasing feelings of empowerment and capacity.

To face the fear is a constant battle, a continuous daily process. There is still this hold, this old restriction. Imposter syndrome fostered from years of never being enough in ballet. It brings tears to the backs of my eyes, it's like a hand pressing on my chest and the top of my gut. I revert back to my young dancer-self desperately needing that validation that I was good, purposeful, that I mattered to the choreography.

A few years after college I burnt out. I was tired of having to remember another person's choreography, to look a certain way. I was never driven to be a Prima, even though I always wanted the spotlight. What I realize better now, thinking back to professional and collegiate dancing, is that I never loved to dance.

What I love about dance, what kept pulling me back to the studio over and over was movement itself. The body in motion. Feeling the sweat drop down my back, feeling my body cut through the space, feeling the rhythm embodied in my muscles. I both love and fear the sensation of walking into an empty studio. It holds both possibility and judgement. The slick, flat floor holds both hard falls, and soft landings. I never know what day it might be until we start moving. Pull out the barres, get into your spot, see what our body has in store for us today. In Ballet, I had perfect technique, lifted posture, soft arms, arched feet, long neck, strong back, agile legs that could lift into any position they were told to achieve. I was always skinny, and I am white. I checked all the boxes that would socially accept me as a prima Ballerina. Yet my head was never settled there. My heart and my gut wanted to explode and move without thought or restriction, but my head held me in my boxes.

Ballet is such a part of me that I can now appreciate, and love. But it's like an abusive relationship that keeps pulling me back in. I found refuge in Flamenco, Jazz, Improv, and Kuchipudi. I found power in boxing, running, and weight lifting. I traveled to do Yoga and dance all over the world. I found embodied knowledge in teaching non-dancers how to move their bodies. I learned that movement is the shared language across culture and class, even when the expected rhythms and shapes differ. We all seek vitality, wellness, and joy, which tapping into physical sensation, embodied grounding, and joyful movement can create.

I believe deeply in the practice of movement, so I now teach people how to center back into their bodies to be able to freely move. I help people reduce pain, reeducate the motor and neurological systems to let go of chronic discomfort. I teach clients how to release then re-strengthen after injury or surgery. I help people reconnect to their breath and to let go of their tensions. And this all translates from my knowledge of embodied anatomy both because of, and in-spite of, my structured Dance profession.

Movement is preventative medicine, rehabilitative theory, kinesiology, dance, orthopedic rehabilitation, and exercise. It is meditation, medicine, culture, community, wellbeing.