The dancer in us

The person in the picture is apparently me when I was fourteen years of age.  I was overweight, unhappy, unable to learn in school and lost.  Nobody knew what to do with me.  Like all teenagers I felt that nobody understood me.  But really nobody did!  My passion was dancing; nothing else really had as much charge for me as dancing.  But because I was overweight I had been told I could not continue to go to dance school.  Dancing was the only thing in my life that I loved; I felt alive, fully myself, energized, happy and whole!  With my friends we would go to evening dancing clubs which was great fun, but it was not the same as getting trained in a school.

This old poem below gave language to my feelings about dancing or any other deliberate, conscious movement such as eurythmy (movement informed by word and music) and taichi (movement informed by martial applications).  The joy of liberation, the promotion of health, the transforming potential of moving something or being moved, the community aspect, being in balance with all forces and most importantly, to be anchored in one’s center are all experiences of soul growing wings.

One of my teachers recently said how easy it is to be thrown off center.  It does not take much for most of us to get out of alignment and most of us spend a lot of time to be balanced so we can be the best we can be.
How delicate all this is!

Dances have always been part of mystery centers, and old folk dances were based on star constellations.  It means that there has always been a sacred aspect to dance as well.  Maybe because finding one’s center has to be continuously renewed?  Because to be in one’s center lets the essence of our being be present and unencumbered for as long as it lasts.  The practice of centering in movement lets us feel what it is to be fully integrated.  Light in the darkness. 

Dancing, taichi and other forms of moving have my back.  It is a primary source of renewal, nourishment, and a way to understand many other things in life.

Have you discovered the dancer in you?

I praise the dance,
because it liberates us
from the weight of things-
uniting the single with community.
I praise the dance,
that claims everything and promotes:
health and a clear spirit
and a winged soul.
Dance is transformation
of space, of time, of us,
who are continuously in danger,
to disintegrate, to become all brain, volition or sentiment.
Dance on the other hand challenges the whole being,
anchored in it’s center.
And who is not possessed by desire
for people and things and by the
demons of abandonment in our own I.
Dance asks for the liberated,
the swinging me
who is in balance with all forces.
I praise the dance!
O human, learn to dance,
or the angels in heaven will not know what to do with you.

(Augustinus, 354-430, translated from the German by Claudia Pietzner)

~Claudia