Let’s face it.
It is really tough filling your dance card these days.
But no need to stop dancing! We just have to get creative, dig down to the core of what dancing really means.
The gift in these times of social distancing
We have the opportunity to learn to do more with less. We need to value the little details that fill our lives with a richness that often gets crowded out by our attraction to distraction.
We can separate the essentials from the incidentals. Dance is one of those essentials that in fact permeates our life from moment to moment but often gets precluded by and image of dance that is dramatic and flashy with high heels and full orchestration and mirrored dance halls. Like Tango.
But dance is everywhere and always.
It is a primal activity that we find throughout the universe.
Consider …
… dew drops crystallizing on the frosted windowpane, fashioning masterpieces of jewelled art.
… dolphins surfing the wake off the prow of a ship.
… starlings murmuring across the sky.
… planets and stars entwining themselves around each other as they spiral relentlessly into an ever-expanding cosmos?
… lovers tenderly caressing each other as they rise to limits of pleasure and passion?
… a baby falling asleep in his mother’s arms when she instinctively begins to rock back and forth to some primeval rhythm?
What is Dance?
Dance is the expression of alignment of our mind and heart with the universe as we move our body in a rhythmic response. It is conscious, intentional, and structured. It is a practice.
Dance arises from within but it is summoned from without. The universe calls, we answer.
In dance, we mirror the world of Spirit that seeks to be embodied in our conscious response. “We are the universe in ecstatic motion,” stated Rumi, who spoke all his poetry extemporaneously from the depths of trance dance.
Tai Chi or flow yoga?
Can these be considered as dance?
When my wife watches me do Tai Chi on the back lawn, as she does on occasion, her comment is always: “It looks like you are dancing.” That is certainly my feeling.
Of course, we have to let our imaginations wander far away from the dance floor and envision dance in the very broadest and essential sense: schematic movement, in synchrony with a partner following the direction of some type of rhythmic orchestration.
Let’s do a checklist for my Tai Chi practice:
Schematic movement? Absolutely. A very tight, demanding, choreographed regime.
Partnership? The air that I move with my arms and breath perhaps? The butt end of my kicks and thrusts? The earth that both gives way and remains firm beneath my feet?
There is a strong tradition of solo dancing of course, and every solo dancer would visualize their dancing in relation to their surroundings, perhaps an audience but maybe just the natural setting. It is important to be in partnership with an “other” but this definitely does not need to be conceived as someone you can touch or hold in your arms.
But where is the music?
With a practice like yoga, typically someone brings some recorded music but when I am dancing Tai Chi, there is only the sensual stimulation of my surroundings, outdoors with the sun and the breeze and the birds and the birds.
The necessary ingredient for dance is not music or melody per se, but rather a regulating rhythm. If I was practicing in a group setting of course there would be no issue. I would simply follow along. In terms of my solo Tai Chi practice, I rely on my breath to regulate my movements. It works.
Walking as Dancing
Can even something simple, basic, and commonplace like walking be considered dance? (Remember that tango is often called a walk set to music, or a dance that is walked.)
Here is another version. Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist Monk, Father of Modern Mindfulness, world spiritual leader, describes a walking meditation in dance-like fashion: “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet… coordinating our breathing with the steps we take, saying yes as we breathe in, a yes to life and the beauty of the present moment, and thank-you as we breathe out. A thank you to the earth and the joy of life. Breathing as with the feet. Returning love, care, affection. The earth will receive healing from us and us from the earth.”
Dance everywhere and always
So here we are. Piecing together all the elements that make for a dance in the wilds of nature, or our backyard, or in the kitchen preparing a meal. All an exchange of affection, measured movement, conscious breathing, the rhythmic striking of a knife on a cutting board.
I believe that at some level all of life is a dance.
Now is no time to take a break from dance but rather the perfect time to learn to move to a different groove.