The Varieties of Dance EncountersĀ š
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Hello everyone,
Boston is getting really cold. The colorful fall leaves are leaving, and with it comes a sudden sense of isolation, of things ending, decomposing, dying.
Of letting go a part of us.
My friend Michael told me yesterday that as fall ends and winter comes, those who haven't fully let parts of themselves die yet are those who struggle the most.
Then he continued, "our greatest struggle is also the one that makes us become most alive". I immediately knew my greatest struggle: coldness.
I recently joke with a German friend about the stereotypical "cold outside warm inside" of Germans. Behind such coldness, I admire the self-reliance and rugged determination, but I'm deep inside (and apparently outside) a tropical boy, which means I rather to have more heat...
Which brings me to how we deal with the cold.
One strategy is to increase isolation, putting on layers after layers to protect our heat from leaking. It works with the physical body, and Michael captured me becoming alive with these two beautiful pictures (99.5% credit to photographer).
Another strategy is to share the warmth by keep moving with each other, letting ourselves be known and know the other. It works better with the emotional body, and this is where I become more alive. I hope this Enzyme is where we can share some heat :-)
The varieties of dance encounters.
This week, I want to share a short reflection on a part of my life on the dance floor, (a video) a practice that truly transformed my being and moving in the world. Dance has become the central metaphor of my life, just like Alan Watts has said in his famous lecture that life is not a journey. I hope you get to dance more, with your physical body and your words.
The varieties of dance encounters
Some are simply beautiful. Experienced dancers who have danced with each other for a long time. Technically crisp and sound, they couple into each other into elegant aesthetics.
Some are raw, colliding, borderline playfighting, bumping against each other like joyous billiard balls. Gracefully masculine, these dances stir bold roughness in the tenderest of us.
Some are interesting, unpredictable, sometimes smooth and sometimes disruptive. Each body seamlessly explores the negative space the other creates. One movement flows into the next with unknowable inner logic, leaving delightful surprises along the way.
Some are sweet with slow, sensuous and attentive movements. When bodies hold and are held with care, worries melt away, resistance ceases, and they drop into each otherās warmth like sugar in hot water.
Some are just bodily pleasurable. It barely look like a dance from the outside, yet between these bodies a conversation is happening, a story unraveling with delicious richness and even oomph. Some bodies just instinctively know to lie on top of each other, sharing the ebbs and flows of the bellies, squeezing and releasing each other.
We may not know each other by social identity, but our bodies surely know each other. Some of those bodies are of people older than my mom, some are like my brotherās. I remember joking with a kindred body: āI think we just invented an excuse to justify that our bodies like each other so muchā. In dancing, we are making kin.
Some are sexually charged from the get go, without even seeing who the other person is. Iāve had several of those dances, some with my eyes closed, and it always struck me how the bodies just know. Those can be fun to experience, without expectation, only with amazement.
One of the extraordinary joy of dancing in the context of community is how many bodies I get to interact with. Lanky, muscular, petite, plump, delicate ones. Some are reserved, some impulsive, some like to be on their own, some found immediate affinity with others.
Through this, I got to dance with different people, ages, sexual orientations, colors, body types, dance backgrounds etcā¦ A rich and sensuous tapestry of shapes, a gathering like this is one of the best embodied practices of relating to each other.
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See the full post here on Medium.
Sharing is sprouting.