Circle dancing uses folk and contemporary dancing with an emphasis on the supportive atmosphere that comes from joining and moving together in dances to music from around the world.
As well as traditional dances from the Balkans, Europe, the Middle East and beyond, there are new dances to all kinds of music. We usually hold some intention to become attentive within - as might be found in Yoga or Tai Chi - and we are not performance related nor lubricated by drink as in a social dances. As a result there grows an inner sense of integration that also reflects a sense of communion or connectedness in the group. Many of our dances are gentle and meditative.
This is also why it is sometimes known as 'Sacred Circle Dance' - not because the dances themselves are necessarily or overtly sacred - (though they may be to some degree or other) - but from the intention with which they are danced. Over the last 25 years or so, the network of dancers and teachers has grown to express many different approaches - for it is a movement made of individual initiatives and has no central body or structure.
Where many activities aim at attaining something or getting somewhere, I feel circle dance works well to remember and express something that is already true - and to grow it. For the heart’s appreciation of life is easily neglected in our business and we become distracted.
In this sense circle dancing is re-creational, a presently remembering, renewing and therefore harmonizing of life - in mind, body and spirit. It can be pitched for any kind of occasion and uses dances of every kind of mood that can be joined with at many levels - and is inclusive in it's orientation.
Our culture has tended to emphasise 'the individual' to the exclusion of our true and common interest. It invites us to consume and acquire, as if to do so is life's purpose. It also asserts and persists such a mentality through our subscription to it’s thinking - rather than allow the sharing of a greater participation in life that includes and actually fulfills our individuality in a felt relationship.
Circle dancing can be used as a tool to rediscover that we are feeling beings rather than emototional management programs. All things can but serve the purpose to which they are put. And where there is a willingness to discover, life reveals itself in ways that call us awake - and we feel the joy or the peace of it.
Yet it is enough to join a dance and discover for oneself - in our own way and time - and there is no need to be intellectual about the dancing nor to be overly preoccupied with learning steps - they really do come easily as one relaxes - and many dances are simple patterns that the body learns easily.
I share dances in a relaxed and musical way with a minimum of ‘problem solving’ and bring a willingness to find the ways that work for us in the moment we find ourselves. I also often sing and play for the dance, and in this as in my teaching, I work within a act of trust - which brings forth a different music than a product or performance.
From our lives comes song and music that expresses 'what it is to be human' - in its fullest sense. In gratitude and appreciation of living, we join to honour and celebrate life and therefore each other and our world: we dance.
Insofar as our world presents us problems, needs and difficulties to meet and find solution, they may be met from a calmer perspective than by mere reaction - in which we often polarise conflict or diminish ourselves to feel ‘safer’. "Stop the world I want to get off!" is surely an expression of desiring to regain a grounded sense of sanity and value. Circle dancing is a for me part of a way of living from such an intent.
And this is actually touching into the dimension that we all need - in every sphere of activity. Because without choosing ways to remember, we simply remain lost in our own judgements and fears - which always distort our perception and become self fulfilling experience.
No amount of thinking or application of law or force or money or effort can make a welcome for each other arise in our own hearts. So compelled are we to thinking and judging - (in the name of 'self' protection as may be) - that we can scarce recognise each other unless we have shared something together for a while.
Yet when any old judgemental armouring falls off - we regain a sense of light and movement. A freedom within whose song is joy. Even a moment of such can lift our day - and our demeanour is always more communicative than we know - in our family, and work and community.
Yes, we generally join hands, and dance in a circle or line - and find freedom to simply be moved by the musical moment - which with discernment we grow to appreciate so much that was hidden before.
At this point, perhaps humanity is at the brink of choosing to continue to think alone - with all the miscommunication and struggles that that brings - or release control enough to let life happen!
The dancer within is not the one who can get the steps - it is the one who hears the music and lets it express through them as the steps. There are some dances that are as simple as walking and swaying - it is not a complex thing - but more a sense of being danced by life.
This is where words have to be put aside and let 'that which knows' lead the way.
It isn't a mystery - it's life dancing!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment