An experimental dance group. Dance as the medium of expression, as the object. Dance as a way to ask questions and derive answers, or not. Dance is the only way I see as communicating such things. The body, movement. Expression. Creativity. Dance as a mirror. Dance as a response. Dance as an experiment. I KNOW that everyone wants to dance, too, because dancing IS being alive – moving is being alive, not moving is dying. Moving, stretching, breathing is being alive. The only reason we sleep at night is so that we can be alive and move during the day. The only reason why we eat is so that we can fuel our bodies to move. And wondering is being mentally alive. Wonder, question, be curious. And music is about feeling so dancing to music is about being alive and awake and in tune with our feelings.
Here’s an example of a job in which I felt like I was dying – mentally, physically, and spiritually. I was working as a gymnastics coach in NYC, except it wasn’t really about gymnastics, it was a business that expected me to adhere to a script (I literally had to learn the lyrics to songs and move children around the room using the same words every time) and train children to all look and move a certain way despite the fact that they were all wonderfully different and unique. So I was dying mentally because I was using my brain to memorize a script not to actually think and I was dying physically in that because the children were expected to move a certain way, so was I, their coach. And I was dying spiritually because I couldn’t love each child for their uniqueness and their beautiful childishness like I wanted to.
I was asked to answer the following question in my thesis class the other day:
What do you wonder about?
I wonder what the process of teaching myself how to be left-handed would be like and feel like? I wonder what it would be like to be bald and how people would respond to me? I wonder what goes on inside of my body and how everything connects and how different foods effect ME? I wonder about street musicians. What are they thinking and feeling? I wonder about my Uncle Tom. What is he thinking and feeling? I wonder what you wonder about? I wonder what long distance runners feel like when they run for hours and hours and hours. I wonder about babies. I wonder how different animals communicate with each other.
I don’t want to die, I want to live. And I don’t see any other alternative than to create an experimental dance group with people who also want to live and ask the question “what do you wonder about?” by moving to music and then maybe eventually giving it form and boundaries so that we can share it with other people who can respond to it because sharing what we love and do with other people is what it means to be human.
Move, Feel, Question, Share. I want to do this. And I want to do this with other people who are interested in really being alive. And I want to dance to and through our wonder. And I want to share our findings, our dance with other people who also have the potential to be liberated, to be free. The only prerequisite is desire.
I don’t want to die, I want to live. And I don’t see any other alternative than to create an experimental dance group with people who also want to live and ask the question “what do you wonder about?” by moving to music and then maybe eventually giving it form and boundaries so that we can share it with other people who can respond to it because sharing what we love and do with other people is what it means to be human.
Move, Feel, Question, Share. I want to do this. And I want to do this with other people who are interested in really being alive. And I want to dance to and through our wonder. And I want to share our findings, our dance with other people who also have the potential to be liberated, to be free. The only prerequisite is desire.
Dance as a place of wonder, of curiosity, and of engagement. Dance as a thing that anyone can do because everyone who is alive has the capacity and the desire to be free , to feel, to be liberated, and to move. Why? Because everyone wants to be happy. It’s what drives us to act, to decide one thing over the other, to keep going, to question. And everyone suffers in some way, shape, or form. We can’t help it; it’s what it means to be a bio-physical human-being who is effected by other bio-physical human beings. But the great thing is that we can dance through our suffering.
So dancing is a way to ask and answer these questions. And it’s the only way. Words are not about feeling, they are about theorizing about feelings and talking about feelings is not about feeling. Like when I play a Cmajor chord on the piano it is an expression of happiness that is enabled by the kinetic relationship between my hands and the piano and the Cmajor chord is simply the audible expression of a feeling that is already inside of me that is manifested when my fingers dance with the keys. The feeling is inside of me, but the movement, the dance gives it life.
The nature of therapy in our country is so weird! You’re sad, you go to a trained therapist, you sit in a chair and talk about your feelings and I guess get feedback. And this all occurs under the presumption that these feelings you are experiencing are “bad” and that talking about them will make them go away.
I’ll take dancing through them for $500 please. No feeling is bad. What we do or do not do with them is bad. Moving is being alive. Remaining inert is dying. By moving your body you are LITERALLY CHANGING IT and if you are feeling bad then you want to CHANGE those bad feelings into good feelings. So move, bitch, get out tha' way!
Personally, DOING is definitely what has been missing in my life. I got really GOOD at observing and thinking and philosophizing about doing and really BAD at actually doing and feeling and sensing. Really GOOD at thinking and really BAD at feeling.
Now academia doesn’t seem so bad when I think of it as a place of wonder, of curiosity. Not as a bastion of pretentious jargon about things that don’t really matter- that are only accessible to academics who have reached a certain level at which they can think about and discuss them. If we only felt and never thought then we would be barbaric animals who didn’t give a fuck about each other and who experienced happiness, or I guess neutrality, out of ignorance. I imagine that fish are happy or neutral or whatever they are because they don’t think, but we’ve been endowed with parts, a brain, a mind that enables us to do that very thing and that enables us to wonder and that enables us to weigh our options and make decisions that will enhance our happiness. And this is why we can *potentially* be way happier than fish; because we can use our thinking minds to help us make choices that will lead us to ecstasy. We can create our own maps to ecstasy that lower-level animals can’t.
So thinking isn’t bad….
Until we start thinking ourselves out of feeling. Until we start thinking about the doing so much that we are actually not doing anymore and just thinking, thinking, thinking. And then we are so removed from the actual doing and feeling that we lose track of the importance of the very vessel that keeps us alive; our bodies.
I want to Move, Feel, Question, and Share. Dance is the only thing I know and the only way I can communicate truthfully. And I'm not talking about some premeditated, choreographed dance that has to be done on a hardwood floor in some studio with the assistance of a trained teacher. I'm talkin' bout tha' real shit! I'm talking about dancing to the very personal question "What do you wonder about?" in all its manifold variations and derivatives.
And I want to do it with other people. If you’re out there other people who are interested in really living, give me a shout out, yo. I want and need to create with you!
And I want to do it with other people. If you’re out there other people who are interested in really living, give me a shout out, yo. I want and need to create with you!
