Tuesday 23 July 2013

The energetic presence that the dance embodies

I expect whoever we are, we feel the world we perceive to be self evident, but a moment's reflection reveals that my sense of the world has grown with me and that we all have our own unique focuses or preferences and consequently different perspectives and experiences.

For my part the energetic is a foreground thing - and if it is lacking, it doesn't matter to me how well the dances are taught or danced in technical terms, the event is hollow.

An awful lot of 'the human conditioning' is like the Microsoft joke:
"How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb?"
Answer: "None - they simply declare darkness to be the new standard"
My point is that we can all agree to be so much less than we are and make it the official reality - such that we learn to live and become relatively comfortable or temporarily feel safe in darkness - and then protect our investments against the influx of light.

For my part, the Spiritual dimension of the dance may be served by external aspects of content; of the dances used and using ritual forms and themes, but is discernible as living presence regardless of where the event is 'pitched'. We never really have a common language in words for presence because it is the language of the energetic itself and can only be referred to or given some kind of witness in the art of our words.

But I don't actually feel that I am a thoughtful person so much as one who has become willing and able to let thinking go - let it rest, and allow a subtler appreciation of the moment to rise that has a unity and simplicity of being and yet cannot be 'taught' or rendered into the verbal mental constructs of a mind that operates as a sort of defence mechanism.
But it can be learned - and I believe that such learners actually teach automatically (whether they are teachers or dancers).
It is not commonly learned or desired, because it is in the other direction to that of reinforcing one's sense of self presentation or getting a better handle on the world.
I see it more as learning to relax so as to 'get out of the way' or let the armourings or masks fall off, allowing a trust in the love of music, dance and life to be the essential support, so that what is coming up is a cooperative fruit of a shared sense within myself that extends out naturally, because it is there.

So here I am again (anew!) finding words to clothe the focus of my attention.

I noticed at my last dance, that I was less willing to simply give support to everyone beyond the measure of their joining. Less willing to simply feed the dancers expectations of being pleasured or excited. What we do or don't do energetically is a lifetime's learning (and more), but whenever we release an unnecessary belief or role, we regain the power we had given away to it and enjoy a deeper clearer calmer presence regardless of the conditions.
Perhaps another reason for the lack of conscious joy, is simply that so much energy and attention is engaged in the 'steps'.

I would really love to work (play) with people who are eager to grow and learn (be transformed) by the embrace of the dance rather than engaging the steps. I know the argument goes that you have to learn the steps and then apply them until you have them and then you can dance, but somehow I feel this is upside down.
Perhaps because our dance forms particularly lend themselves to those who lean heavily towards the verbal mental approach rather than 'getting' the dance by induction. Because this is so often true of the teachers, it follows that it draws the dancers and sets up the culture that expresses such control, rather than a spontaneity of trust.
Children - of all species that learn behaviours, do so mostly by direct induction in the presence of clear demonstration. Clear being a term not just for the form, but for the manner or spirit of expression.

I don't think it is just that dance is not in our (Western) culture like in the Balkans etc - but that our approach to life is so much more in the 'head', as a sense of being the controller. I feel this may correspond with the 'Patriarchal aspect' as opposed to a more unified expression - but I tune into this in the Now. For the unified is always the living presence and not the packaged and processed interpretations of any kind of elite.

I've rambled on a bit - doing something I love, because I love it.
That's why I dance and share it and sing for it too.
It is a vehicle of expressing a simple and undemanding love in a world that is largely defended against it.
Being in my element; (the loving) is connecting within myself and therefore with others and the world.
When I try to live outside such a, everything goes awry!
There are no substitutes for our genuine presence!
No one else will do!

Sunday 7 July 2013

Private - Keep Out! ...?

If I have dancers who are locked into looking at feet I often invite the group to have a specific practice or repeat of a dance to explore finding the dance in our bodies. I do so in clear invitation and offering support.
If dancers are locked into looking at the centre (whether I have one or not), I tend to choose dances whose energetic opens to a present relationship in a looseness of fun - unless a more grounded joining felt more appropriate.
The pallet of dances offers itself as a moving focus of our group attention and energy.
Attention directs energy and energy follows attention. Freeing attention opens the space in which to feel and behold the full quality of our dancing.
Looking down is part of a spectrum of range, but locking the attention downwards denies aspiration in shared endeavour.
Subservience looks down, the unworthy look down, but to what do we subjugate ourselves?

The private 'spirituality' that is so easily lost, spoiled or exposed by coming into relationship with others is a sham(e).
Nothing Real is threatened, but can be lost sight of if the unreal is accorded an equal existence. If two or more gather in some other name...

Now surely our relationship is not in itself a joining of hands or meeting of eyes - but is joining in shared purpose.

To talk about this level is more difficult because we don't have shared vocabulary for it - but the symptoms or effects of withholding  are indeed a joylessness or flatness - which then demands a private 'spirituality' to compensate. But our simple presence shared is already a spiritual Fact.

This hole in our culture is buried beneath a lot of stuff that a lot of people are dedicated to defending. It is of a similar nature to the story of the Emperor's 'new' clothes, where none can see or admit to a nakedness because to do so is to reveal themselves as unfit for their positions or hopelessly stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes

Of course Life is still Life and happens or leaks out in all sorts of ways. But the exceptions prove the rule rather than disqualify it.

In a culture where everyone agrees to look the other way, love does not exist... and so people make substitutes for it because a purely hateful life is both unliveable and intolerable to the love that we are.

What then is the art and dance of relationship that allows us to meet without making demand of, asserting power upon, or appeal to?
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

I am not raising issues to assert myself - but to invite a shared focus in areas of our dancing that  - I sincerely feel - will benefit from being brought to light.

The degree of differences in various groups around the world will not mean that there is not a legitimate conversation to share regarding this - for those who feel drawn to engage in it.

Not everyone has interest in anything except 'dancing', but what is that??
Private - Keep Out!
Authorised persons only!

?

Brian

Thursday 4 July 2013

Acceptance

Good morning all,

There is an aspect or level of our awareness that can always pick up when someone is trying to get something from us  - or put something on us.
If we join with this, we make mutual transaction, we make social rules and expectations of behaviour.  We set up conditions for 'love' such as if you behave as I desire, you will please me, and if you do not you will hurt my feelings and make me upset. Of course this gets very very complicated - except that none of it is real, so much as an attempt to make reality (and the reality of others) fit the ideas or the wishes that are given priority or held dear. When people join in the attempt to make reality fit their own image - they believe it! - and live out from such belief as if they actually were together in the ways they imagine. As if Life (the Living Universe) actually is supporting and enacting our plan for it.

But when we meet someone who is accepting of us as we are, we find a spaciousness in which we can feel, and move with what we feel, for our defences are not triggered into reaction  - unless we are afraid of being without such structures of control, in which case we become aware of the tight fit of our own mask - and thus invited to become self aware of our presentation.

When we can truly be ourselves with another, we feel it as love. We not only feel loved, but feel a freedom to be love's expression.
But the way of this is like a dance in that the self-revealing and the acceptance are not transactions of getting something - nor of getting away from something - but are a cooperation within the 'movement' and the music of our being. one could say a deeper sense of connection with Life, with ourselves and each other. But it is actual, rather than symbolic. Real rather than rehearsed.

Such communioned sense may well become the basis of a new set of transactions - in attempt to have it again, or get more of it, or make sure we don't lose it - and so it is temporarily lost to our awareness while we engage in attempt to make life work - as if it is not already working. But it remains true that when we accept and embrace the moment (of ourselves and each other) exactly as it is, we become available to Life and Life becomes available to us. We have - so to speak - rejoined the dance!

It is very possible to define life and joy in terms of struggling in the dark in terms of moving toward light - if one can get others to join with such definitions or meanings.
Nothing is so lost as that which we set out to find, in the conviction we do not have it!

Sharing the experience of the moment - by neglecting to withdraw, withhold or make separate, may initiate an awkward silence - and unexpected intimacy. Yet if we abide in the moment without reinforcing our reactions, something occurs between us that is in effect 'uncovered' or restored to us - of relating in a way that is unforced, and natural. So many cling to the surface simply because they avoid the personal chaos or conflict that underlies the sense of being 'guilted' by rejection, exclusion and inadequacy. The first time another man hugged me, I froze up. I said (though it was also obvious) - but I said, "I'm all froze up" and he said, "That's ok". And it was - because it was simply honest of that moment - acknowledged and embraced - and moved on.


Brian

Some background in teaching dance as joining in relationship


I almost never teach a dance without there being a sense of the music and therefore rhythm - and nearly always sing as well as demonstrate the dance - in slow motion if helpful. And the rhythm is present throughout the learning - as is a sense of sharing rather than learning in isolation. (Though of course the dancer is free to learn in isolation if they insist!).
(If I could not sing I would at least play a bit of the music first - and call attention to the rhythm if helpful). As a singer, I can not only sing - but can sing without embarrassment or self consciousness. Not that I make a fool of myself - but that I am indifferent to such in the willingness to share - and if I sometimes do - then it is of no moment because it is not about me.
I minimize the aspect of the mind that associates learning with school (at least as school was for me) and maximize the joy, relational trust and relaxed faith in everyone's willingness and ability to join the dance. I will reinforce with verbal mental instructions or mappings - but that isn't the primary mode of teaching or communicating.
If I have dancers with less ability, I may offer cheats or workarounds or simply pointers such as keeping their steps smaller as well as inviting them to tread water 'in the manner of' with kindness to neighbours and remaining with the music and the circle - until they see where to get back on again. This is so much better than chasing after the lost moment for all concerned!
There could be pages of things I might say of offer to such dancers - but would generally be as felt appropriate to their demonstration. I tune into when or whether to directly help as making them self conscious is not help! But I also don't overteach as if we all have to be perfect before we can meet the dance and I raise the bar at least such as to induce some aspiration and some willingness to join in work and play (and rest).

I have a 'workshop' mode that tends to focus on a few dances in more depth, a 'celebratory' mode that focuses on the shared energetic - including very slow or intimate dances - and mostly these days am 'at Home in the dance' not only literally - but actually.
Being at home in something is to be at rest - even in its dynamic - and even through apparent chaotic aspects. I feel this is a mastery - not of cultures or forms - of which one could never perfectly complete an education - but of oneness with. Like we master walking when we no longer have to manually 'do it'. Walking is just part of our expression of ability. We can then use walking without it being a big deal.
This quality of fluency or at-home-ness can extend and invite because it is not trying to become something or validate itself. I notice that the focus can be held clearly in the heart yet in an informality. Our willingness is the measure of our sharing and as the teacher/host I am willing to set the intention and invite joining through example - so I extend that willingness in ways that feel appropriate or receivable - according also to my current level of trust. The more trust is extended the more perspective we share in which to bring more willingness...
But there is a current level of trust in oneself and in each instance of every group that is the guide - because if one attempts to push the river - disconnectedness and struggle replace guidance with self protective blocks and one is obliged to release it and be restored to serving rather than controlling!
In a willingness to serve the dance we can ask of the dancers - and receive freely, what could not be accessed with targets and incentives!


Brian

Relating in the Dance #1 - Personal and transpersonal

If an issue becomes polarized into good vs bad, then real communication is lost. If identifying a block becomes merely the mapping out of judgement, instead of releasing the block, then the 'understandings' reinforce the conditioning that constitutes a block to the natural flow of our being.

Perhaps this is why so many no longer meet in the dancing? - because of a history of (and thus an anticipation of), blame and judgement?


There are a number of indicators for health that are not a matter of the absence of symptoms, but a tangible presence; the qualities of Life.

I am aware there are different 'gazes' that are natural and appropriate for their respective occasions. There are dances that are not social and which call forth a centred interior awareness.

But even so, I stand by my observations (of an avoidance of relationship in the dance). In part I feel a pervading culture of fear and blame that is like a gestalt of our times, and I see it affecting almost everyone either to reinforce fear and control ... or to force its abandonment.

There are a number of ways in which so many dance so much less than their actual presence - presenting an acceptable 'joining' in terms of form but not really joining in Spirit - in living and present movement of inspiration and purpose.

And I feel that there are many who have settled for cherrypicking the 'bits that they like' and are willing to go through the motions of what they don't care for. This being a mentality of separation, comparisons and judgements - and not a circle of joining through music and dance at all.

In this sense I feel that what once was a ritual space in which to take off our ego's along with our worldly habits and tensions, so as to be renewed in Spirit - has become somewhat absorbed or subverted to being a sophisticated presentation. I'm not 'picking' on the dance in this. I see it happen to every new movement or inspiration.

Is it 'good or bad'? - Or is it an opportunity for growth and awakening? We each make our choices - and live by them.

And the reason I raise the issue is simply to invite more conscious attention and appreciation of the power of the dance when we join through it rather than get something for ourselves each.

Being someone who is generally open, receptive and appreciative, in the dance, I enjoy the oneness of purpose that I can feel with others, and I enjoy noticing and joining with the joy, shine or radiance of anyone who brings their presence into the circle in any degree, and I appreciate the moments of spontaneous shared welcome that for me are not merely personal, but the moments of the touch of an unselfconscious quality of being.
In the last post I called them 'darshan' moments - but namaste moment is also apt. To not only enjoy, but to be known in our joy - without inhibition of denial, recoil or avoidance. This is never a matter of will so much as willingness; to let the movement of our being be a fullness of experience that is never altogether private of subjective - but always has a quality of shared or unified being.

At some of Friedel's dancing, I noticed the cultural focus discouraged social connection and focused toward a centredness that was transpersonal. I found it excellent for bringing forth the 'inner dancer' into embodiment - as a serious undertaking of willingness to work!

Yet without grounding in the heart, this could become a culture of personal achievement; self-serious, special and aloof. At the last such occasion, a few of us sang one of the songs live for a dance she had choreographed (Raglan Road) and the heart quality in the singing enabled the witnessing or sharing of the transpersonal through the personal. Such indeed is truly a moment of fulfilment!

Ritual dance sessions can be a vehicle of sharing depth - but can also remain on the surface in somewhat self serious compliance.

Social dances can be deep fun, but they can also be a sort of conditional high without much grounded connection - such as to lose the shared attention of a circle into an immediate chatting in energy overflowing.

Consciousness either tends to use the form or stop at the form.
Transcendence or gratification.
When we stop at the form we have - in my terms at least - fallen asleep in distraction.

The distracted busy or mesmerized mind is 'elsewhere' and unavailable. It does not even realize it is 'engaged' until an awareness rises from a fresh perspective. I don't say this as a 'bad' - but simply to remind us that the human consciousness is expert at forgetting its true nature in the world of its own conditioning.

Anything that serves to re-mind and re-member us in Life, as conscious appreciation and gratitude, is part of our healing - that then extends in our lives to others. Because that's the way life works unless we break or block communication.

When there is a block, energy builds up as part of the healing or unblocking, and if denied, generates crises toward healing - yet humankind tends to dig ever deeper into a personal wilfulness or obstinacy in trying to overcome an adversity, rather than pausing reaction in order to look or listen more honestly.

Where there is a block there is the 'poor in Spirit' - but where the block is undone or passed through is the blessing of the 'Kingdom of Heaven' (I know you and others don't personally lean to such a term Laura - but it points originally to our essential and shared divinity, Now... and not to a Christian commentary).


Brian

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Relating in dance #1

Relating cannot meaningfully be imposed, but is uncovered in the extension of trust.
While one can exercise methods or techniques toward such discovery, these are only bringing one into a place where realisation can occur.
The willingness for insight or realisation is the essential determiner of the outcome and not applied force or method.

In this sense our primary relating is within ourselves,  as an expression of self acceptance in expression.

As we see ourselves, so will we see others. If we are judgemental and rejecting of ourselves, we will experience as if others are carrying our own thoughts. Therefore an unjudgemental circle of trust will not reinforce a tendency to withdraw or retaliate in a sense of justified defence.

The attitude of defence is often one of damage limitation, of presenting one's self so as not to attract or merit blame - with all the feelings of rejection, invalidity, hatred and rage, that are associated with guilt, with exclusion, and with unworthiness or denial of love. Much of our social adaption and learning, works to suppress and limit our exposure to the hateful, but it does so at a cost of also denying or suppressing the life principle itself.

The desire or calling for dance has within it the desire to feel and be life in expression, and in joining in dance as a community, to share in and witness that expression.

If this desire is suppressed by a defensive attempt to limit and control our experience, we essentially usurp the movement of life with an imposition of forms of correctness in which we feel some sense of temporary protection and validation - relative to a hostile environment.  And because we cut ourselves off from our life expressing by such controls, we feel less at rest in our wholeness, and more susceptible to threat. Fear becomes a self-fulfilling loop of experience in which the seeming answer or protection, actually fuels and feeds the conditions of division, conflict and the need for defence.

Hence we dance in 'suits of armour', with little free attention to notice or behold the expression of being that is presencing itself as our relatedness - our sharing life.
But if there is any movement of the call to joy alive within us, we will have moments or periods of being-in-expression that are portals or stepping stones out from the mind of thinking, and into the mind that aligns with feeling. It may be these moments are brief, if our desire to get a handle of control on our experience interrupts by habit - because such moments are clear experience of being in harmony with - yet not being in control over - our experience of ourselves in the world with each other.

Investing in such Self-revelation so as to give it honour and welcome in our life is simply a matter of not persisting in suppressing it. This might be a simple moment of releasing what doesn't work, or it may be a process over time in which we notice the ways in which we are still attached or identified with in some protective or personal sense, and shift our identification by degrees until we feel safe enough to trust or move more freely.

A culture of joy establishes the conditions for learning are present, and each of us finds our own way in relaxing and accepting our inclusion in such joy - for though we can lead a horse to water, we cannot make them drink. Self-inclusion is the basis from which we relate in wholeness of presence in which 'life finds its way' because it knows itself. But the definition of joy in terms of a self-specialness will lose its way and will not realize it does this but to itself.

The dance has always spoken to me as a way of releasing self-specialness (in oneself or others).
One can say that everyone is special - but really it is that we are all significant, as the presence of life in expression - as the movement of relatedness of which we cannot really separate out from excepting in imagination that always becomes fearful and always loses the 'music' and the joining.

I thought I was going to write some simple examples of things that I have found helpful - but as the above paragraphs appeared I accept that a foundational perspective is essential. To abide in an expression of trust without attachment to outcome is to break the habit of a coercive intent.
The movement of trust is like a small quiet voice beneath the clamour of the mind in reaction, yet when it is desired, it can be discerned, already present.

Brian


If we build on the sand of merely wishful thinking, it will not stand.