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Dance til You Are No Longer Afraid
Tagging on to DiAnne's excellent piece on musicians taking back their music, I have been thinking a great deal about the power of dance and movement to change hearts and minds. I've been thinking about this especially because my choreography students just finished a semester in which they studied war and created at least a sketch for a piece about war. In their final journal entries, they struggled with the difficulty of the process of creating anything as a group, much less such a loaded topic, but they also expressed a deeper understanding of what it is to be "at war" than they had at the beginning of the process. They learned. And they learned to be bolder about choices in general, to speak up, or at least question why they were not speaking up. tis makes me feel much better.
Because I am uneasy these days. I worry that we are spending too much time worrying about the wrong things, or less important things: Obama's not-so-helpful choices for positions, Christmas presents, what to make for dinner, etc. Not that those are unimportant and not that we don't need to be conscious of all the changes coming our way. We do. But while we are concerned about the things that matter less or that we have no real control over, I am worried that fear is retaking us.
I went back to an old DCP post I did in 2006: http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2006/03/fear_up_all_ove.html
In it, I wrote about how the powerful consciously work to assure we stay fearful, because that keeps us from finding our voices, from asking the tough questions up close, and from believing that we are the change agents.
On January 19, I plan to host a dance event that I hope addresses the issue head-on. Through the power of movement and rhythm and voice, I want to create a choir that resonates in power: individual and collective. The goal is not to celebrate the Obama victory, although that is the context under which the event will occur. The goal is to celebrate the power of community and action and voice to overcome fear and to illuminate darkness.
Watch this space for more information, but know that the sponsoring organization for this event is the Democracy Cell Project: educating and activating our way into hopeful transformation.
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I started a while back by trying to take worried, concerned, afraid etc. out of my vocabulary and it's really helped.
For a long time, the only prayer I have followed is the old-fashioned Serenity Prayer.
Karen, if I was only a dancer...but alas, I only move fluidly with a baton in my hand, stereo blasting, and my neighbors screaming...
Matt,
Sounds like a few Po-Mo performance works I've seen! Do not doubt your own ability to move and bemoved...
Karen,
First...I recognize that picture. (and me in it too!)
Second...it seems like in every play or dance ballet, there is a protagonist and an antagonist. The reason people are falling back into fear is because we waiting for a new administration and worrying about each and every admin pick but furthermore we see more and more long term laws and lawbreaking by the cabal currently occupying the W.H. who is further raping and pillaging of our country until Jan. 20.
Is it the Dance of the Macabre? All I know is that dancing is for happy people--people without fear and people who haven't witnessed the oppression and destruction around them. I feel like I'm witnessing crimes in both my personal life and in the world of politics. And I'm tired of seeing the hint of something good only to have it withdrawn equally as quickly.
We worked hard to make sure a new administration would come in who had integrity. And I don't doubt that Obama does. (Though it's who you surround yourself with that could be different.) So my fear isn't about Obama. It's about the downward spiral our country is in and I fear we will never have a better life for our family, friends, and kids.
Sparrow, the thing about dance is: you dance what you need. If you need to overcome frustration, to deal with betrayal, to heal--it's all possible. That's what dance movement therapists, like the ones in the photo above, do.
And if you need to dance a recuperative dance; one of deep rest and reflection, that is possible too.
As I am watching the two videos I posted, above, the lead story on the World News feed in the left sidebar is that the head of the IMF predicts more global "slowdown" coming. I am quite sure he means a slowdown of the economies of the world, which of course is seen as "bad". But watching the dancers explore and breathe with each other, support and heal others, and move to understand how the world REALLY works, I can't help but celebrate the possibility of true "slowdown", in the service of caring for each other more fully, breathing more deeply, and taking time to nurture the planet.
I like to dance to celebrate even if things are bad because I believe we have the right to do that and it's what we're on earth for and no one can really take it away. Same with music and good food - I think those things are a right & when they're hard to get, something has gone wrong. I think dancing & music are almost as essential as breathing.
slugbug,
dancing and music are a RESULT of breathing!
I am snowed in and reading a book about Josephine Baker who started out in minstrel/vaudeville shows and left US for Paris when she was considered an "exotic" but went on to take her art from burlesque to relatively haut couture/highbrow. She did an amazing amount of work and covered alot of ground, given no real formal education or money, just raw talent and creativity - without her there would not be Grace Jones or Madonna, I don't think!
You will see risque (for the times and even now for some) costumes, racial stereotyping (which eventually came to be melded with a more mature awareness of Africa and cultures, as her work was combined with museum exhibits and more academic ventures - as her status grew.) Also, for the times, she achieved a high salary and quite a bit of artistic control, and even went on to adopt about a dozen children of all colors, from all continents (Angelina Jolie wasn't very original.) Eventually, Josephine Baker came back to America for 1963 civil rights march and much later appeared (when much older) in a white beaded motorcycle outfit! She was never very educated in America but went on to become quite fluent and literary in French, her adopted language. Her best known song (she sang and acted too) was "I Have Two Loves" (pretty much about her two countries.)
My current inspiration .. I also read a book about Laura Bush (not much there - your basic codependent), a nonfiction one about a woman who grew up with hippies and went on to join the Navy (rebellion?) and a third about the woman who was in the book "The Lonely Doll" (wrote it/had a dysfunctional relationship with her mother.) I just am not much of a fiction person but I am obsessed with biographies, especially of women! Even better if they are creative!
Karen
If dancing and music are a result of breathing (exhalation) then they are overlaid functions like speech? That is even MORE natural! Being deaf or mute is considered a disability as is being unable to move, but that is very basic. What a luxury to maximize them!
Wow there are all sorts of documentaries and dancing videos about this (& more) - I am snowed in and I am going to watch them! Maybe I will dance!
Here she upstages Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Maria Carey all at once. She used to both darken and lighten her skin and also play with gender, sometimes dressing as a man.
slugbug,
Two students just did extensive research on Josephine Baker, so we all watched these videos. She was an amazing character--and highly challenging to all status quos!
Obama and Michelle will be dancing up a storm
President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will twirl their way through 10 official inaugural balls on Jan. 20.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee said Wednesday that the Obamas would attend 10 official balls, one more than President George W. Bush and Laura Bush attended in 2005.