Movement therapy

If you feel sad, keep moving your feet. If you feel happy, keep moving your feet. Even if you feel tired, keep moving your feet. That is where the transformation occurs. Dance becomes both a meditation and a sanctuary.

There was one day where I felt such an incredible level of sadness that it was difficult to move. Everything felt heavy, my limbs were made of lead. I focused on my breath, but it felt stuck, like it was lodged inside of a metal vise. But I kept with the practice and kept moving.

There were moments where I noticed people jumping around, wildly expressing themselves, when all I could manage was a shuffle. It did feel good to feel my bare feet touching the smooth, polished, wooden floor. Since shuffling was all that was available at that point, I played with different shuffling patterns.

I changed the focus to my hands, following them as they swirled through the air.

I kept moving.

Something happened. I don’t know exactly how long it took, but all of a sudden, something shifted. The vise released a little, and movement flowed. It was an opening.

With the release came clarity. Thoughts danced through my head as my body moved to the music. The truth of why I was feeling sad suddenly dawned on me, along with the words I needed to say to heal the situation.

The feelings did not magically vanish, but they did subside. By choosing to keep moving, I found grace.

A new tool for transformation: SARK’s Transformation Exper!ence: A Multimedia Journey of Healing and Transformation for the Splendidly Imperfect

Beautiful Ballerina

Author: Marilyn Nelson illustrator: Susan Kuklin
Title: Beautiful Ballerina
Publisher: Scholastic Press, 2009
Ages: 4-8
ISBN: 9780545089203

Written by Newberry Honor winner Marilyn Nelson, Beautiful Ballerina is a visual and lyrical celebration of ballerinas. Every page of Nelson’s flowing poetry is accompanied by bright, colorful photographs of young ballerinas from the Dance Theater of Harlem’s school. Tiny ballerinas stretch, point their toes, and mimic the older ballerinas as they fly through the air in grand jetes or balance en point. Every step captured by the camera was professionally choreographed by Endalyn Taylor, the Director of Dance Theater of Harlem. Words and poses are equally inspiring for a variety of readers, from young dancers to adult aficionados.

Are mistakes a good thing?

Life is a dynamic process. Things move and change constantly, and we do the same. Every so often along the way we are bound to trip up and make… a mistake. For some, the thought of making a mistake brings up a lot of fear: fear of looking bad or ridiculous, fear of being noticed, or fear of losing self-esteem. However, ask any group of people if anyone among them has never made a mistake in their life, and the answer will be a resounding “no”. But maybe, just maybe, they serve a purpose.

We can count on making mistakes in life, and plenty of them. But if no one is immune, then they must serve some purpose. They are learning tools. It can even be argued that they are necessary to success and growth. Each mistake we make is an opportunity to evolve. If we are willing to spend some time thinking about making changes to improve things in the next round, we will come out ahead.

Dance classes or classes of any sort are the place to experiment and try new things without fear of failure. If there is any good place to fall on your face, this is it. GO ahead, make the mistake, and then try, try again. Chances are that you won’t need 10,000 tries to get it right, like Thomas Edison did while inventing the lightbulb.

Even if you do fall on your face, it’s a chance to get up and try again. A steady pace wins the race. And really, we’re all in it together.

Passion, please

At any given moment, we are the sum total of our experiences. They shape us and our perspectives on life. Movement, feelings and expression are all highly personal, even though it doesn’t always feel that way within a group of dancers. With this in mind, it’s clear to see that trying to compete with other dancers is a waste of time. There has never been and never will be another you. You dance the way that you dance, which is different from anyone else.

As a living, breathing entity, a dancer in turn breathes life into their dance by bringing honest feeling into the picture. The highest kicks and the greater number of turns mean nothing without heart. The people in the audience are all human, capable of a spectrum of feelings, and they come to a performance wanting to be moved. If you allow genuine emotions to be a part of your dance, it will be real, it will be yours, and they will come back.