Lifting Lines/Morphing Visions: Autumn 4

Tags

art, artist, Ballet, contemporary dance, creating, creative procss, creative spirit, Dance, life, meaning, Modern, Movement

As rare occurrence has shaped my life, I shape the movement of the dance space

As a physical language expresses the road I have traveled, I express the spectrum of emotion from my heart

As poetic imagery pools in the kinetic landscapes of my work, I remember my journey through metaphor

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In a Silent Way

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allowing, breathing, falling, health and well being, listening, listening to the body, meditation, Movement, movement meditation, Running, scanning, silence, whispers of health

In a silent way, I run. Quiet is the mind listening to the blood course through the highway of my veins. Breath beating freely within my lungs keeping time with my feet. Scanning my body to release tension while falling in freedom. This mysterious floating with the energy of the forest carries me more deeply into the meditation of this path.

At The Window

Tags

allowing, becoming, beleif, Believing, change, compassion, Conscious Living, courage, development, dreams, Energy, forgiveness, letting go, letting go of noise, Movement, shift, spirit, Vulnerable

In my chair at the window, I opened my eyes

Darkness was fading as light came from the east

I wondered, early in the morning

What is it that is waiting out there for me?

Silence of night raised many questions

Light might reveal answers in the time to come

Patiently, we let life unfold bringing what it will

Where is this place we call home?

When a tumultuous existence moves past our present

One breathes more easily throughout the day

Relief fills the space of our hearts

When is it time to let everything else go?

A Moon to Exist Under

Tags

Ballet, Believing, Conscious Living, contemporary dance, Creative Flow, Creativity, Dance, darkness, journey, light, Magic, Modern, moon, moon beam, Movement, poetry, radiance, space, speed, spirituality, twilight, universal consciousness, view, well being

moon beams from an eastern twilight sky

glowing magically with a radiance untouchable

floating above a cavern so vast lies an eternity of space

a silence so thick and dense there is to be no movement

and still, time passes through like a speeding train

racing towards no end

breaking all barriers to exist

Something To Be Grateful For

Tags

adult dance, art, Ballet, contemporary dance, creative bliss, creative energy, Dance, Energy, gratefulness, Modern, Movement, pedagogy, Soul to Soul, spirit, spirituality, Teaching, Technique

Recently I was asked to share my thoughts on what I might be grateful for with the participants of an adult dance camp that I had the opportunity teaching at. What came to mind was the moments you see a student realize that they have the power to make physical changes and be conscious of a technical application. This moment is a tremendous light that is reflected throughout the body and radiates such joy that one cannot help but be grateful to be participating in such a wondrous event.

 

I think this moment is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching so much. In all honesty, I never wanted to teach in my life. I had a very different vision of what I would be doing, but for some reason, my path has created an opportunity to be in the act of sharing information that helps people to find their kinetic potential and realize the magic of dance that I so love myself. Watching students fall in love with movement and their development of a conscious relationship with their body and their moving spirit really is something to be grateful for.

 

Another reason why this moment is so significant for me is that it allows the learner to release their walls of insecurity and fear. In doing so, it empowers them to understand the meaning and purity of movement. It encourages a confidence in them that they too, for all these collective moments, experience the great joy and magic of dance. It is truly a wonderful world to be able to live in. I am grateful that I am blessed with the opportunity to live it on a daily basis and share it. What brings me continued joy is that those that are able to glimpse that magic for a brief amount of time are experiencing it.

 

It is so very important that we as human beings understand intimately the power of magic in our lives. It is incredibly significant that we allow opportunities for ourselves to be in a state of creative bliss no matter how small or expansive those times may be. We, at our very core of our existence, are pure creative energy. We need to be congruent with that so that we can be at peace with our mind and body while inhabiting the creative energy of our very being.  All too often, we are held hostage to ways of existing that are not sustainable to our souls, our environment and one another.

 

Therefore, I am grateful. Grateful for the opportunities when I can see people stand with incredible courage in front of themselves and watch themselves dig deep within their potential and make shifts in their physical being. These very shifts will offer a magnitude of ripples in the rest of their lives. I hope that when they are faced with incongruence, they will remember the joy and magic of what they felt making changes in their bodies and realize they have the power to make changes in every part of their lives.

 

It is my hope that my students, whatever the age they may be, realize that in the end, learning how to dance is really learning how to navigate this wondrous life. The educational process of dancing is really a metaphor for our lives. We must daily put into practice a rigorous training so that we may pay attention to our physical being and our creative spiritual being understanding their balance and letting them be a partner in realizing our dreams.  If we are to truly understand life, we must reveal our souls to the process of living and the process of learning. I can think of no better way to do them both than the art of dancing, or rather, the art of gracefully falling through space being carried by the spirit of the work and the magic of dance.

Photo Credit: Doug Roark

Amaranth Contemporary Dance: “Transcending Chronology”

Choreography: Scott Putman

Dancers: Katie Contessa and Scott Putman

Takeing Time for Technique

Tags

Ballet, Believing, choreography, Conscious Living, contemporary dance, Courageous Vulnerability, Creativity, Dance, EBAS, Fierce, hope, joy, Kindness, Modern, Movement, Musculature, patience, peace, Support, Teaching, Technique, training, Vulnerable, well being

The Elemental Body Alignment System was designed to help the learner activate the intrinsic musculature allowing them to immediately connect with firing them and overriding the natural impulse to immediately fire the gross musculature which inhibiting range of motion and promoting an imbalance in muscular engagemen. In EBAS and both ballet and modern techniques in which I teach, this deep activation of musculature necessary for articulating and supporting movement from the appropriate place is crucial in ones ability to successfully achieve the technical concepts given.

Students of all levels are able to access this musculature if in fact they are given the time to feel particular activations and allow the mechanics of the movement to assist them in doing the work or task given. All to often, when I take class or observe classes being taught, there is this push to do everything fast. It is almost as if speed is the benchmark for excellence. Do not get me wrong, speed us crucial for dancers and we should all be able to move well on a large spectrum through various speeds indeed.  However, we do need to be sure we are doing it technically and holistically correct.

When beginning to train and well into the training of advanced dancers, we must remember to allow the body time to fully experience technical concepts. If we don’t allow this gentling of space and time, gross musculature engagement will override the balance and equality necessary for healthy technical principles thus slowing down technical progress and the healthy development of a dancers training and therefore their elongated career.

I for one would prefer a dancer to take more time in the beginning rather learning how to activate appropriate technique with the right balance and promoting the momentum of success for them, rather than beating them over the head with speed causing frustration and in many ways, humiliation. There are better ways of building speed and using momentum and the building of positive muscular feedback loops is the way to go.

You see if the student knows how to activate deeply from the muscles closest to the bone, they will be able to access the fine-tuning muscles necessary for the articulation of all forms of technique. They will successfully be able to repeat those sensations while building confidence and courage identifying what is necessary and how to accomplish the task of speed efficiently.

I often feel as if teachers who give material to students excessively prematurely are simply masking the fact that they themselves have no idea how to teach fundamental principles. I feel they are simply trying to fool the student into thinking they know what they are doing by making the student feel as if they could never do things properly or fast enough to ever make it as a dancer. This certainly does not allow students the opportunity to succeed in our art form not does it promote appropriate and healthy technique.

We need to take the time to slow down learning how to stand and be. We need to allow our students the luxury of time now so they can save time and frustration later. We need to encourage the student to feel technique from the inside out rather than promote training the façade of the body. We need to train dancers who can feel themselves deeply and therefore deeply feel. These are the kind of dancers who speak the magic of the art form to the audience. These are the physical storytellers so desperately missing in today’s work.