To truly love dance
Every time I go out to a dance event, whether it be a street battle, dance class, contact improv, or conscious movement, I set an intention for myself. Recently, the only intention I’ve been arriving at is this: Let this experience allow me to fall in love with dance again.
Again. I wondered how that last word managed to sneak in. Then I realised, of course—love is a cyclical process. Love, whether it be infatuation, the fall and surrender, or the kind of mature love that commits wholly to allowing another to flourish, is a cycle that must begin again and again. That is what dance taught me.
And so I have fallen in love with dance again and again, night after night, song after song. When my movement starts to grate on me, when my mind and body begin to argue, I notice the conflict and do not get caught up in the drama. What anchors me is the intention, and the knowledge that no matter how angry, frustrated, upset I may be at my dancing, or the very existence of this form that is now making me suffer, I still love it. Like a mother who loves the child who never wants to speak to her again. I love it and am grateful it exists.
Having had such a toxic relationship with dance only a few years ago, I’m astounded by the loving relationship it has been nurtured into. Really astounded. Really grateful. No matter who has come into or out of my life, no matter where I have gone, it is one of those relationships that have always been an anchor in my life. A space that connects me to the world and to my innermost self. And something larger than even that, I have realised.
Now that my relationship with dance is more loving, I notice I am much kinder to myself in dance environments. More resilience, way less resistance. Way easier to make the most out of a dance event or experience. The jealousy I used to feel towards other, more skilled or talented dancers still emerges like an unwelcome intruder, but it is far easier now to pay it little attention. Instead, my attention goes to the surge of wonder-awe I feel when a dancer’s movement really speaks to me. When I can connect with their essence, whether it be on an emotional, cultural, spiritual or technical level.
And this is the larger thing I have realised that dance accomplishes. I feel almost embarrassed that I’ve realised it so late. Seven years of exposure to street dance and only now I understand the very foundation of it? The foundation being this:
Dance is not something to possess for yourself, not something to colonise. Dance is supposed to liberate. It was always supposed to liberate, liberate groups and communities from a reality that weighed upon them like a boulder. Like a sunset, dance cannot be owned or moulded into anything other than what it is1. One can only be grateful that it has offered its beauty to the world.
Carl Rogers, A Way of Being↩