Friday 26 March 2010

The living cultural context of dance

The living cultural context of dance

The original meaning of the term culture was associated with the verb; to cultivate. Without getting bogged down in definitions and levels and meanings that inevitably fail to communicate anything - I feel it important for myself to have a conscious sense of what it is I am cultivating in my dancing.


To embody a culture is to demonstrate it and to invite others to share in it.
It is also to create the conditions in which the values implicit to the culture can be nurtured - and where values that would undermine it are not invited and not supported. For my part, I am keen to use the dance to invite and extend an inclusive experience whose passion is energetically felt as a presence tangibly shared.

Sacred Circle dance - to my mind - is not sacred because its contents are sacred things - but because the context of intention and aspiration has a willingness to discern and embrace - within our dancing - those qualities of life that we hold sacred - that truly inspire us and even transform our consciousness or awaken a deeper intimacy to our own life.

The human mind orientated towards the world will always lose this spirit and gain instead the ‘things’. These may be imbued with sacred or secular meanings that one can be ritually dressed up in - but the dance has become an external prop for a privately engaged satisfaction - if there is not an active willingness to
hold the culture of intent by which life is welcomed as it is rather than exploited for what can be gotten from it.

For me many circle and folk dance sessions I have participated in, have lacked a context of intention to join at a level that - to me - is embodied in a relaxed connected silence - and an atmospheric of freedom from judgement - with an intention and willingness to actually share the dance. I could just call it free conscious awareness. Free enough of the judgemental personna to share in a mutual appreciation.

In a larger cultural sense, I see in our times a pervasive intent that nurtures a ‘blame culture’, in retreat into fear - and the pursuit of a privatised culture of the so called individual consumer. Such a mentality is devaluing the practice of extending and growing trust-  upon which we depend far more that we realize.

The above paragraph is not describing life directly in any real sense of passion or presence - but speaks of a culture that spreads by guile and insinuation and sells a sense of life by focusing always on the negative and scapegoating it.

To actively promote dancing in shared trust is to risk into ‘coming out’ in witness to an alternative approach to life than the prevailing ignorance would teach as the limited and mean spirited trickle of life that fear’s guidance delivers.

This isn't say that dancing is validated by its side effect of promoting health, happiness and harmony of being - as if it were a weapon against dark powers. No - it is simply an expression of alignment with original being - in which the false sense of self control is absent. Such is the condition in which God is remembered - not in theological terms - but in terms of the radiance and vitality and abundancy of life in our hearts and minds - and its communion through us in our daily life.

To wake up is not an independent act - but the restatement of trust in an utter dependence in which we move as we are moved and know the Life directly.
This awakening is gentle - in that it does not force - but flows more fully as it is accepted.

To let the dancer within rise and move freely, is to let go the rigidities of mind, emotion and body that would freeze life in attempt at safety and control.
This is a truly wondrous dance - and as a dance - is not aimed at getting to someplace else - but of enjoying the movement of the moment exactly as it is.
Of course this is felt as a homecoming - but it is kept by its expression and not by  definition and identification with thought.

So you realize that to keep it you must give it - and not deal in that which undermines it - or you simply throw away or cover over the life that you love; the love that you live.

The thought that says you can dip in and out of life to get what you want - and balance out and manage for yourself is a kind of unconsciousness in which you seem to be taking a ride on life - yet completely ignorant oif its true nature.

Something has to call you present enough to pay attention and gain your allegiance and trust such that you choose to move through the limits of the old and allow the experience of inclusion that the new restores you to.

For me, music and dance are part of this call, that brings me a sense of others and the world made new. This is the living culture in which I share with you. It is not formulaic and cannot be defined. It truly is a dance of trust to a song of gratitude; moving in the freedom of joy.