Sunday, November 03, 2019

healingdance2

presentation notes to:

Why we Dance

Guest Artists:
Cary Altizer, soloist #1
Erin Guthe, soloist #2

Contact Improvisation by:
Circle Modern Dance


Presented by:
Wayles E. Stapor
Presentation April 27, 2001
Paper May 4, 2001


Presented to:
Dr. Neil Greenberg
Art and Organism Class 2001

Why We Dance?

Introduction
This question has interested me since I began taking formal dance classes at the age of three. I knew that I had been dancing long before I got to the barre and mirrors, but now I had a special place where I was supposed to dance. Not just dancing down the aisles in the supermarket or pounding out a rhythm on the kitchen floor, now I had teachers guiding me to much greater heights than the glories of backyard, neighborhood, gymnastics. Through these forms of play and more, I learned the joys of moving my body early in life and quickly became addicted to movement. I am not speaking about technical dance but movement. I thought that everyone felt the same way about moving as I did. That wherever you are in space, energy will flow from you body with certain forces and join in a dance of being. Everyone is therefore everyone dances right?
Well according to the Cambridge Dictionary dance occurs when you move your body and feet to music. But what if there is no music? Webster’s dictionary says that dance is when you move rhythmically up, down or about. Except what if you can’t move quickly or think you have any rhythm? Clearly we need to delve a little deeper into defining dance.
The English word dance is related to the French word danse, which is related to the German word danson, which means to stretch or drag. The root of all these dance terms can be traced to tan, a Sanskrit word meaning tension. Obviously, dancing has been apart of human existence for a very long time. Ancient manuscripts such as the bible talk of dancing, and even older cave drawings depict dancing as well. How can an aspect of human life that is so ancient and ingrained, be simplified into a one-phrase definition? It can’t, not if we really want to understand what dance is, what it feels like and why people do it. Therefore, I propose that we must think radically and alter our concept of what is dance.
Dance is every movement that the body makes. I mean it, from an early morning stretch, to picking your nose, falling down the stairs or cooking dinner, it’s all dancing. Or let me amend that, it can become a dance as fast as you can think. All you have to do is be aware of your movement and realize that you are dancing to really be dancing. Intent is everything in this definition. Let’s try a little experiment and try to experience what it feels like to be a dancer. In the space as you are now become aware of how your body is existing in space. Feel your body from the skin between your toes to the hair at the nape of you neck. Now become conscious of the force that you are exerting in space. The weight of your body against the ground and the force it would take to move one finger. Finally think of the energy that you exert just by being. Breathing, feeling, thinking all of these things takes energy and contributes to your dance of life. I encourage you to maintain this level of awareness for a while or at least revisit it periodically.
Dancing can be a powerful medium of expression and communication. I believe that movement can express sentiment and meaning as well as the spoken word. The presentation of the following work is meant to be accompanied by a troupe of improvisational dancers. The mother of modern dance Martha Graham once stated that “the body says what words cannot.” Through he dual interpretation of both movement and words, the question of why humans dance can be examined. When approaching this question, we will examine it through the method of D.E.E.P. analysis. This ethnological approach creates an atmosphere where dance can be examined in reference to human’s behavior. Environment, physiology, fitness, and personal experience all contribute to human behavior and these aspects of life are important to study to understand how and why dance exists in life.

Developmental
Each dancer has a unique genetic potential for dance. Physical abilities, emotional drives and personal experiences shape individual dances. Some might say that dancing begins in the womb with the first instance you become aware of your body and are amazed at its power to move. I believe, however, that ontogeny has little to do with a dancers unique style. Mainly humans learn about dance through experience. Imitation is a powerful first step in developing a movement style. You imitate actions that appeal and begin forming a movement vocabulary. Sometimes it is easy to see similar movement styles in people who spend a lot of time together like families. You may often hear people say, “why you look like you mother and act like her too.” As much as you might like to deny this at a family reunion when you are 8, it may be more truthful than not. During formative years our primary caregivers are strong influences on all aspects of life. We will emulate their movement and make them subtly our own. As you develop you will begin create a movements that are uniquely your own. If a certain skill is required, classes can be taken to learn specific patterned movements. These lessons from imitation to formal education help shape and express your genetic potential as you interact with your environment. Your own unique style of movement will form and be expressed in your daily life in countless dances of being.

Ecological
In some cases, the dances of every day being are developed into precise dancers of technical artistry. Dancers take classes to learn more about a particular style of moving that is not their original style. This environment develops trained bodies and minds to execute brilliant feats of technical genius in ways that most dancers would not conceive of moving the body. Yet the small dances are no less important. When the significant forms of technical dance were being formed each was in response to the environment. Ballet for instance was developed in the court of King Louis XIV of France from the popular social dances of the time. This marked the turning point in the Western world when dance became a recognized art form. This change came about because of the rich and indulgent environment of 17th century France. After ballet as an art form was firmly established another technical form of dance would challenge it. In the strict and rigid atmosphere of the ballet world, dancers were eager to create new freer forms of movement. They rejected ballet and created in modern dance a new, more expressive style of movement that explored contemporary issues of the early 20th century. Dance is truly a contextual activity. Whether in the internal or external environment, all authentic dance is a response to emotion and emotion is derived from responses to the environment.

Evolutionary
I define authentic movement as that which comes straight from the heart. Movement that happens naturally and therefore is true to expression and self. Other dancers can tell when a movement is forced or construed. Forced movement is not quite trustworthy and likely to be responded to negatively. If you consider courting rituals of early man, dance was an essential way to catch a mate and ensure fitness. By watching another person dance, one can gage physical health, which factors heavily into choosing a mate. During the Renaissance a book was published that taught all prospective noblemen and women how to act at court. Castiglione’s The Courtier even had a section on how to rate a partner’s health and tell if a prospective mate had certain diseases by how they danced. Humans have probably always used dance as a device to facilitate mating and reproduction. The physical act of moving the body is inherently provocative and arousing when executed with specific intent. Whether it was an excuse to hold a person of the opposite sex close or to discern reproductive viability, dancing has long been a favorite method of attracting a mate and consequently of fitness. Dancing is probably more an expression of memes that genes. Meaning that dancing is taught rather than genetically inherited and can be considered a cultural unit of inheritance.

Physiological
Dancing has always been an integral part of cultures since the time of lineage-based societies. People dance for artistic expression, emotional expression, and nonverbal communication in many areas such as spiritual worship, entertainment, courtship, education and therapy. As our bodies exist in space we are constantly receiving sensation from the world, input. It is our brain's job to integrate this information and then tell the body how to respond. Neurobiology has many influences on the art of dance. The training of a technical dancer’s body takes years of classes. The brain will create new pathways for dance technique as it does with any specialized task. Dance can also influence the brain by being a stress reliever. In many instances taking time for relaxation and gentle movement is extraordinarily effective in reducing stress, for instance the ancient practice of tai chi or yoga. On the other hand, dance can be a great stress inducer. The performance jitters, your first social dance, or the physical and mental exertion of executing steps all increase the levels of stress on the body. The human body needs a healthy level of arousal to push it to excellent but not produce burnout. Dance can be an effective tool to bring balance to either overly tense or relaxed individuals.

Conclusion
So why do we dance? In light of the previous discussion, and through my deep consideration of this question, I still had not discovered an adequate answer. I decided to take Martha Graham’s advice. Graham believed that “movement never lies” and perhaps through an exploration of dance with dance we can discover the essential truth of this question. I wanted to gain alternate perspectives on the issue of why we dance. To this end, I decided to perform a survey and ask other dancer/performers why they danced. I structured dance into two main categories; dancing for others or dancing for self. The answers were unusual, touching, humorous, and often absurd. Drawing from the responses, I compiled lists of motivations for improvisation and composed two poems. From these materials, the improvisation dancers could explore different movement styles that would express the desired concept; people dancing for others and people dancing for themselves. I choreographed two separate solo dances to the two poems that also explore those issues. The choreography for the solos is the way that I personally interpret the words of the poems and how as an artist I try to express the essence of the soul through other bodies. All of these materials are present in the appendix.

Critique
“Why we dance?” was presented on April 28th 2001 at the home of Dr. Neil Greenberg. The performance was executed by a small group of dancers from the University of Tennessee Dance Company and Circle Modern Dance. The choreographer and creator of the presentation was Wayles E. Stapor a student of the 2001 Art and Organism class. The performance lasted for roughly 20 to 25 minutes and incorporated elements of dance history, audience participation, freestyle improvisation and set movement. I felt that the presentation was ultimately successful in that it clearly conveyed the major theme to the audience.
One could almost classify this performance as a site-specific work. The stage was a plank deck with some exposed metal edges that were potentially dangerous to bare feet. Railing edged the deck on two sides and the wall of the house on one other. The most wonderful aspect of the setting was the brilliant canopy of trees that framed the elevated stage. Because the dancers were approximately 15 feet off the ground, the trees were very close and lent an aura of dancing in a special, air born space. The major drawback of the space was the relatively small dimension of the stage. Also the audience was relatively close the dancers and this does not give much opportunity for perspective on the dance. On the other hand, an intimate setting can sometimes be very effective and personal. When considering the message of the piece, which was that every one is a dancer, it is somewhat appropriate that the audience was almost apart of the performance in their proximity.
Other technical aspects to consider in the presentation were the dancers, costuming, lighting and sound. Because of the outdoor element of the performance, it was completely non-technically oriented. The creator Wayles E. Stapor in the form of her original text provided the sound. Despite the outdoor setting with no sound equipment, she was easily heard and understood. The costuming was of the simplest design. All of the performers wore the same color, black, in different combination of article of clothing. The costuming choice left the body easily seen and unobstructed and directed attention away from the costume and toward the movement. The lighting was totally natural and illuminates the dancers sufficiently. The semi-professional dancers that performed were very well prepared and seemed to be comfortable with their bodies and how to relate to other dancers. They executed the movements with precision and a very absorbed performance quality. It was apparent to the audience that the dancers were taking this journey through the world of dance with the narrator. I really enjoyed the dancer’s performance and appreciated the commitment that they lent to the project. With these dancers it was easy to see that they believed in the message that dancing was essential for life and that everyone did it.
Wayles E. Stapor composed the text for the performance. Overall, I believe that it was interesting and successful. The first portion of text introduced the concept and defined the role of dance in the artist’s life and in the lives of others. After engaging the audience to participate in the dance and become dancers themselves, Stapor went on to discuss the roots of dance. In the interest of clarity, Stapor only explored the roots of dance very briefly and mainly concentrated on western European dance. I feel that the presentation would benefit by including examples and references to dancers of other parts of the world. After discussing the roots of dance, Stapor went on to apply the DEEP analysis to the topic of why we dance. Within the structured framework of DEEP, Stapor tried to relate the connections she was making between dancing and the elements to ordinary life. I thought that this was appropriate for the informal setting, but if this work were to be presented as a formal exploration and paper then other examples would be needed. Dance is present in a wealth of historical contexts and this could be brought to play in the presentation. Overall, I thought that the text of the DEEP analysis section was interesting and thought provoking for the context. If this was to be presented as a paper without the benefit of dancers, I feel that it would need to be supplemented with some of the previous suggestions.
The dancing for the first section of text was not rigidly choreographed by Stapor but instead more shaped. I believed that it was designed so that a different improvisational technique was utilized for each element of the DEEP analysis. Such methods such as flocking, sculpting, and imitation were lead by different members of the dance ensemble. It was also obvious that the movement style reflected and somehow supplemented the words. For instance, when Stapor discussed the ecological aspects of dance in society, one dancer sculpted the other dancers and exhibited how the environment creates certain shapes and situations. In another part, one dancer led the group in movement. This was indicative of relationship building in the individual and unique relationship that each dancer had with the lead dancer. This concept of relationships relates to the evolutionary facet that Stapor was discussing. While each dancer was subtly different each was a part of a group evolving together. In a more obvious connection, when Stapor spoke of physiology the dancers moved in moments of contrasting tension and relaxation. This illustrated the extremes of body movement and how humans are always striving for a healthy balance in the body. These movements were supposed to express how this balance is facilitated and achieved through movement of the body. It is clear that the dance while not strictly set by Stapor was skillfully crafted to create a total impression on the audience, one that includes both words and movements to express the meaning. I feel that the effect was successful and that the two components are greater together than they would be presented separately.
The second portion of the text, the original poems, must be considered with in the context of the movement that is linked with its creation. Stapor composed these poems with the intent that they would only be seen and heard in conjunction with the dance. These poems taken from the survey responses somehow create a cognizant impression of the message of the performance without becoming too literal. I feel that upon reflection of the poems alone, they do not impart as much impact as when read in conjunction with the movement. In the same way, I think that the movements created especially for the poems do not have as much meaning with out the words that describe movements. This symbiotic relationship is not unique in that many works of art depend on a compilation of factors and not just one influence. I believe that by exploring this side of art Stapor has become a better artist and more knowledgeable about the importance of collaborative art. Overall, the piece was performed with a degree of polish that made it pleasing to watch, yet maintained an element of engrossing spontaneity. The messages of the work were clear that everyone dances as a part of life and expressing some of the reasons for dance. I really liked the duality of the performance in the movement and words and would like to see more such marriages of mediums. I now know why these people dance but the question begs to be asked why other people dance in other cultures and situations. I feel that a more in-depth exploration is warranted and that this is only the tip of the iceberg. As she suggests in the beginning of her work, I would encourage Wayles E. Stapor to delve deeper into the question of “why we dance?“

Appendix

    Improv Motivations: Dance for self
    Booty dance
    Drunk
    Working out
    Release anger and aggression
    Get pumped up for special event
    Dance of Death
    To entertain children
    Commune with cats
    Jumping off curbs
    Sliding along a man’s body
    Your rabbit died
    Being with friends
    When you are naked
    Smiling
    Glorify mother earth
    Celebrate nature
    Cool sheets and hot bodies
    Waltzing
    Sentimental song from relative

    Improv Motivations: Dance for others
    Watermelon Man
    Salsa at a wedding
    Judas’s uncontrollable weeping
    Dance of comedy
    Horrible singing on purpose for comedic affect
    Gushing mud through your toes
    Kissgasms
    Falling in love
    Nutcracker’s Clara
    Expressing soul to God
    In a parade


    Words of clarity: Dance for others
    Feeling of being truly alive
    My body is my instrument in music
    Reach out to the audience
    Let everything go
    Art of dance
    Showing beauty in different forms of art
    I have always been performing
    My soul dances for God
    Pure joy of moving
    It is like speech, I cannot express myself without it.
    The rush is incredible; the best feeling in the world
    It is in my heart, my love
    Dance expresses who I am
    It is satisfies my ego
    Share talent
    Fill the audience with the emotions I project
    Audience reaction
    Respect for me
    To engage
    From a moving body entices
    To release the energy within me and to fulfill the desire to do so
    To fill the space around me with my presence
    To live in the moment with other beings
    Own your entire world
    Everything within me wants them to know how I feel
    When words are petty transmissions of my feelings actions
    To make love, to seduce, to create laughter, to convey passion
    Movement can tell a story; sometimes better than voices
.
Art of Dance

I let everything go
in the pure joy of moving,

Reach out to the audience
showing beauty in art.
I have always been performing.

From a moving body entices
To make love seduce laugh express…
Everything within me wants them to know how I feel.

Dance expresses who I am
When words are petty transmission of my feelings…actions.
My body is my instrument in music.

Own your entire world,
Fill the space around you with your presence,
Fill the audience with emotion you project.

Live in the moment with other beings;
engage respect share satisfy…
A feeling of being truly alive.

This rush is incredible
The best feeling in the world.

I release the energy within me to fulfill desire,
It is in my heart, my love
It is like speech, I cannot express myself

without it.


Movement can tell a story,
sometimes better than voices.

Words of Clarity: Dance for self
Dance to release energy
When I feel happy
To express emotion (joy, sadness, anger)
To worship
Dance is emotionally driven
It conveys something that is beyond words
I can’t help but do it…
A need for fulfillment
To vent
To express myself to myself
For confidence
To discover the true technique of dance
Anytime I hear a beat
Dance for satisfaction
It is a necessity
Dance is an essential part of who I am
Follow my dream
A chance for my soul to breathe
It is empowering
I make decisions
I respect



Why we Dance

I dance to convey something that is beyond words,
A need for fulfillment, for confidence
To discover the true technique of dance.

I can’t help but do it…
Anytime I hear that beat,
I must follow my dream.


I dance to release the energy inside,
When I need to express myself to myself.

To vent.

Dance gives a chance for my soul to BREATHE.


Dance, Emotionally Driven
Essential part of who I am.
Satisfaction necessity worship

Unique unto me…
Deep within me…
Releasing from me emotion.

I make decisions, respect life and move….

It is the necessity of the Cosmos.

dancing shivadancing shiva
DANCING
Dancing has been an important component of many religious rituals. Repetitive rhythmical movement was thought essential to build up to the moment of ecstatic union with the deity.

Dancing is a gesture of the whole body which can ally the body with the soul. It is one of the most powerful forms of spiritual or magical ritual. It is a dynamic tool for awakening and stirring the subtle forces and energies of life. True sacred dance is a means of focusing and directing consciousness through physical behavior. It is an outer expression of the inner spirit.

Ancient worshipers of the Goddess attributed the initial creation of the universe to her magic dance over the Waters of Chaos, or the Great Deep (Hebrew Tehom). With rhythmic movements she organized the as-yet-unformed elements, making orderly patterns that the Greeks called diakosmos, the "Goddess's Ordering. She is still found even in the Bible, as the spirit that "moved" on the face of the Deep before God spoke the universe into being.

The four-armed Shiva is worshipped as a world-sustaining deity whose cosmic dance (nataraj) expresses the symbolic movements of the universe and the rhythms of ongoing existence.

In the Gnostic gospel Acts of John, even Jesus danced and said to his disciples, "To the Universe belongs the dancer. He who does not dance does not know what happens." Early Christian churches carried on liturgical dancing in imitation of all their pagan contemporaries; but a wave of asceticism about the sixth or seventh century outlawed ecclasiastical dancing on the ground that it was too sensual and too much enjoyed by women. Though dance is not regularly practiced in modern Christianity, the bible says (Psalm 150, v 4) to "Praise him with the timbrel and dance."

The ab was one of the Egyptian's seven souls that was supposed to come directly from the mother's heart, in the form of holy lunar blood that descended into her womb to take the shape of her child. The hieroglyphic sign for this eminently matriarchal idea was a dancing figure, representing the inner dance of life perceived in the heartbeat. As long as the dance continues, life goes on.

Dance, when you're broken up.
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you're perfectly free.
-- rumi --
RELATED VAULTS #
Capoeria Links
WHIRLING DERVISHES #
Sufism & Whirling Dervishes
MEDIA COVERAGE #
Study shows hard drugs link to the rave scene, The Scotsman (UK)
[ back to spirit ]  



Therapy as a Dance and Dance as Therapy: A Cross Pollination

By Bill Hedberg and Jessie Shaw

Program Notes
This article is a lecture about heaven. It discusses the interconnection between the practices of dancing and Self Relations. Our desire is that it will pique the reader's interest and curiosity enough to abandon lectures about heaven. May all its readers go off in pursuit of a body-based practice that will help them discover and deeply feel their own aliveness and bring their unique gifts into the world.
The authors bring these thoughts to you based on their own experiences with dance and SR. Jessie Shaw is currently obtaining a Masters degree in acupuncture and has studied SR with Stephen Gilligan over the past 4 years. Although not a professional dancer, she has intensely pursued classical ballet as her physical practice over the past nine years. Bill Hedberg has been a student of SR for the past five years. He uses the principles of SR coupled with his own past experiences as a professional dancer (Elisa Monte/David Brown, Douglass Dunn, Tunisian National Ballet) to guide and inform his teaching and training of professional dancers at his studio, Gyrotonic® on the Hudson in New York City.

The Overture
"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind."
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Cameron, 1992)
As human beings we all carry with us wounding, strengths and longings that propel us through life, like a large wave under the board of a surfer. Sometimes we experience the peak of riding the wave, sometimes we experience near falls off the board, and sometimes we purely crash and burn fighting against the strong undertow that feels like we will be forever lost. This is called the cycle of life. It's so easy to talk about as our "story," but it can be both euphoric and agonizing in the flesh of daily living. SR is a practice that helps one navigate the rapids of life: the joys, the tragedies, and the sufferings that life entails. It is a process of transformation that entails the full owning and full being of all that one is in a fashion that is open and all inclusive, on a second-to-second basis.
This article doesn't spell out the principles of SR. Stephen Gilligan (1997) has already done so in The Courage to Love. We use his principles as the underlying epistemology for this article, like an alphabet that can be strung into many different sentences, phrases, paragraphs and stories. Taken in this light, the principles and practice of SR, while originally proposed within a psychotherapeutic context, can be extended across many contexts that comprise the state of human living.
One such context is the world of classical and contemporary modern dance. Dancing is a vivid metaphor for the principles of applying SR because it is by nature a combination of the body, the mind, and an audience. Dance is a discipline, a practice and a way of life, that when done well, epitomizes the essence of SR. For to dance well, one must develop the ability to hold multiple awarenesses at the same time: somatic self (body), cognitive self (mind) and the field (audience). It is the kind of dancing we experience at a phenomenal performance when an artist captivates us through her ability to express a deep emotion with the simple turn of a wrist, or the mere showing of her back.
Realizing the SR principle of mind-body unity, shown in the cognitive self and the somatic self integrating into a generative relational self, is one of the differences that makes a difference in achieving human excellence in any field of human endeavor, whether it be dance, art, choreography, music composition, athletics, theatre or scientific thought. It seems to us that no matter the field, excellence cannot be achieved either from a purely cognitive or somatic position. Only when the two are connected and in communion do great performances or works of art occur. This is why Gilligan's (1997) references to great individuals in a variety of fields seem so relevant: Einstein's descriptions of where his ideas came from; Michael Jordan's "zone;" Mozart's perfect musical offerings. Inspiration and genius are clearly at work, but these giants also achieve a connection between body, mind and the collective unconscious that takes their endeavors to a level higher than what seems humanly possible.
This article seeks to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of the SR principles through the metaphor of dance and the actual practice of dancing. It also examines how the use of SR in performance based dancing (whether it be classical ballet, modern, or jazz), can take us beyond "good dancing" to the realm of extraordinary peak experiences - into the world of "magic performances." Thus, the first step in the practice of SR might be considered "remedial" (training, taking class), with the next being "generative" -- applications that lead to advanced creativity and "in the zone" experiences. As an old Zen teacher remarked, "Enlightenment is an accident, but a good practice makes you accident prone."
Toward this enlightened end, the article discusses the principles of SR and their relation to dance. Specifically, it addresses: the formation of the relational self and its importance to dance and expressive movement; the inherent difficulties in feeling and connecting with the somatic intelligence of the body; a practice the dancer or artist can use to help build connection and relationship between the cognitive and somatic selves; a discussion of pain and physical injury, and how dancers' approach to healing these traumas is analogous to the healing of emotional pain and suffering as discussed in SR; health and healing as an ongoing process which dance and physical practices greatly facilitate; the addiction inherent in "high states" - of which dance is one; and finally, a discussion of how dance or other body-based practices can facilitate heightened awareness and spiritual consciousness.

Act I, Scene I: There Are Two of Us
"What I am actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us,
and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly."
Shakti Gawain (Cameron, 1992)
We have observed in our experience in the field of professional dancing that some dancers progress quickly, while others who train as hard or harder, make little or no progress. We believe that the more successful dancers are able to better meet the considerable challenge of connecting their somatic and cognitive selves, and to feel and achieve the middle ground of the "relational self." (Gilligan, 1997) In the dance world, we believe the relational self corresponds to what is referred to as one's "performance presence," i.e., a heightened state of awareness where one is able to track numerous internal and external inputs (music, other dancers, audience response, breathing, choreography, story line, images), while also listening to and sponsoring the creative impulses that arise from the somatic being (discovered emotions, spontaneous musical phrasing, unpracticed nuances in the shape and expression of the body itself). The underlying concept of the relational self or of having performance presence is that there are two of us occupying the space of our being: (1) a cognitive self that is primarily the verbal, visual mind, and; (2) a somatic self that can be experienced primarily through kinesthetic sensations (emotional and physiological) of our body. The intelligence of the somatic self is perhaps the most difficult to understand, and can perhaps best be explained through an example. When one slips on a set of stairs, the hand will automatically grasp out for the railing. The question might be, "who saved you?" This reaction is not the working of the cognitive mind, but is the physical intelligence of the somatic self at work. It automatically, without the intervention or direction of our mind, grasps firmly to protect our life. In dance, it appears that the somatic self is up to something more than "protecting." It is longing for freedom, spontaneity, nonverbal expression, and connection. Thus, the somatic self comes to life in dance by guiding the positioning, spacing and angling of the body, the timing of the movement, breath, and musculature contraction and release - all synthesized into a pure celebration of movement.
The interacting of these two selves in dancing can perhaps be exemplified by William James' metaphor of the horse and rider. (James, 1950) Taken first from the traditional perspective of mind over body, one's conscious mind or cognitive self might be seen as the rider giving instructions to the somatic self, the horse. The cognitive self, using visual and auditory symbolic representations, instructs the somatic self of where to go next, and the position or shape of the body to achieve. The somatic self interprets these instructions through having rehearsed the sequences and positions, and understands in its non-verbal fashion, what is expected. From an Neuro-Linguistic Programming modeling perspective, one might hypothesize that simply using the "natural," most eloquent images or auditory cues to inform the body could be enough to create art, and that sense of grace that one sees in good dancers. However, this is not the case because artistic, expressive dance does not come from a mind over body perspective. All that the use of this model ensures from a dance training perspective is that the dancer will move across the stage at the right time using the right positions. It does not guarantee or predispose the dancer toward an artistic, graceful performance that connects with the audience. And it does not address two equally disturbing dance states where the relational self is not present: dancing that is stiff and mechanical (cognitive dominance) or dance that is overly emotional and self-indulgent (somatic dominance). (Gilligan, 1997)
For artistry to occur, the artist must create the experience of a relational self, where mind and body interact, work together, and are equally guided by each other. This relational self does not occur until the cognitive self surrenders into a relationship with the somatic self in such a way that both are equally present at the same time. Returning to the horse and rider metaphor, one must take into account the nature of the relationship between horse and rider. In great myths of heroes and their trusted steed, such as The Lone Ranger and Silver, or Xena, Warrior Princess and her beautiful stallion, the two go in search of adventure with a joined intention and responsibility. The two work as a team, each with his or her individual strengths and intelligence. The rider treats the horse as an equal and allows the horse to take initiative, and at times lead him. It is not a dominant or abusive relationship; but rather one of love and respect. The rider learns to listen to and heed the horse's intuitions. The horse and rider become one, and act with a shared intelligence.
This is the state of being that the true artist strives to achieve, and it is an apt metaphor for the relational self emphasized in the SR model. It is more than an advocacy for self love. It requires that the dancer have an inherent curiosity, respect and appreciation for this ultimate intelligence that resides within his or her body, and the discipline to undergo the training that helps cultivate a loving relationship with it. This can be a challenge in many ways. Not only does it require an awareness that this other intelligence exists; it also requires a great deal of commitment and trust to develop the connection.

Act I, Scene II: Lose Your Mind, Come to Your Senses
"No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature.
I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never knew existed."
Roger Bannister, on breaking the four-minute mile (Cameron, 1992)
To gain a felt sense awareness of somatic intelligence one must first be willing to feel. It is only through the conscious mind's felt sense of the somatic self that the harmonized intelligence of both systems can be generated. In actuality, few of us orient to the feelings of the somatic self willingly. After all, the somatic self is typically numbed, abused and ignored in our cultural and familial histories. We typically do not listen to the calling and feelings of our somatic self until it is "leaking" so badly that we can no longer ignore it, e.g., through a symptom such as depression or anxiety. SR emphasizes this "problem" as a solution, that "something is waking up" within the person (Gilligan, 1997). Our typical reaction to the awakening of the somatic self is to try to ignore or numb it further. We rarely welcome or bless the difficult and uncomfortable feelings that arise within our beings. Often, it is only when we can no longer turn away from the somatic self that we finally open to deeply connecting with it. At such times, hopefully, a person can find a safe place, e.g., therapy, body work or a body-based practice, to learn to associate rather than dissociate from the somatic self.
Learning to "lose the mind" of cognitive control and trust the somatic self is especially crucial for dancers, who rely on it for their art. Most dancers practice and develop a basic level of connecting their somatic and cognitive selves because of the pressures of the performance environment. They train to not be disturbed by negative emotions that might overwhelm them in a performance, such as anxiety, fear and memory blocks. Because such states can throw a dancer right out of his or her body with disastrous results in the midst of a performance, practicing repetition in the studio becomes a crucial part of training both to build endurance and to generate pure muscle memory. If the mind totally blanks during a performance, the only hope is that enough time has been spent in the studio in connection with the somatic self. Because the somatic self has its own unique intelligence it can remember how to keep going until the cognitive self can re-engage. It can pull a dancer through those rough moments. This is one type of a "lose your mind" state that confronts most dancers, and that they all address out of pure need.
However, there is another type of "lose your mind" experience that is more generative in nature. It is a learned state of "being present" in the studio and on stage where the deep self or soul can be touched and expressed through the movement. This is the aspect of the art of dance that is the ultimate challenge. It is an exploration through the choreography and movement whereby the somatic behavior or positions act as a rolodex through different selves. It is the idea of exploring oneself through the choreography, and becoming aware of the feeling tone that reveals a moment of a self with each movement, gesture or body posture. Some of the selves revealed will be "neglected selves" (Gilligan, 1997), or parts of the self that the dancer feels uncomfortable feeling. Or it could be a self or feeling tone locked in the past that the dancer especially likes to feel, despite its lack of maturity, e.g., a young self that loves being reassured and praised, or an indignant self that would like to act out in rehearsal when things are not going well. The generative artist is one who can feel and express all of these different selves and not lose him or herself in the experience. It is the concept of "not too tight, not too loose" (Gilligan, 1997), the capability to hold the present self and the neglected at the same time.
One way of thinking about this practice that the artist follows in order to build this capability is shown in Figure 1. The stages of the practice are: (1) fully feeling the neglected self; (2) adding a mature presence and understanding to know the neglected self is not "all" of them but a "part" of them; (3) holding both of these felt senses at the same time to facilitate; (4) bringing the neglected self into the "land of the living" in a sponsored way so that its presence can be integrated and transformed. (Figure 1.)
Figure 1
The failure to integrate the energies of the somatic self can be quite frustrating. In the world of dance, this corresponds to times when the performer falls too deeply into their emotionality on stage, so that the audience feels a sense of over indulgence that causes them to disconnect from the performer. Even though the performer may feel that he is expressing his deepest truth or soul, the audience is not able to witness the event. The only way a performer can get beyond this hurdle is to connect the somatic feeling with a cognitive mature presence so that both may be present at the same time and expressed through a soulful, caring touching of the somatic tender soft spot. When this somatic self is sponsored and connected with a mature presence, it can be felt in the world and the audience is able to empathize and co-feel the emotion being expressed. Without the soundness of this type of cognitive-somatic connection, the audience may not be able to empathize with the emotion being expressed and may even feel like they are being imposed upon or violated. This will usually cause them to disconnect from the dancer and from the intention of the performance itself.
Artists talk about the experience of a relational self in different ways. They may describe having a really juicy part or character to portray. Or they may describe a state wherein there is an experience of release in the body, such that movement takes on an unselfconscious grace where the body, core and limbs, integrate and express themselves in an effortless, united way. The artist who has gained experience in connecting and holding these two presences may take the experience a step further by asking, "Is this the appropriate self to touch at this point in the choreography? Is it the part of myself that best expresses the emotion or story I want to tell at this point in the dance?" This is where the art of dance and the creative process begins to reveal itself for both the artist and audience alike. It is the generative application of the practice of SR.

Act I, Scene III: The Pain of Pain
"Our suffering is us, and we need to treat it with kindness and nonviolence.
We need to embrace our fear, hatred, anguish, and anger.
'My dear suffering, I know you are there. I am here for you, and I will take care of you."
Thich Nhat Hanh (Thich Nhat Hanh, 1998)
Another reality of being a dancer relevant to SR work is physical pain. Pain and injury are daily realities of the professional dancer. A dancer tweaks muscles, compresses joints, puts parts of the body into spasm, and often deals with chronic exhaustion and fatigue. When a dancer is on tour and doesn't have an understudy, there is no choice but to perform. Thus, the dancer must learn how to delve into the proper naming of the message of pain, and learn how to re-open condensed tissue. Many names exist for a negative body reaction to pain or injury. In SR, it might be called "neuromuscular lock" (Gilligan, 1997); acupuncture describes it as "blocked energy;" and in dance, it is referred to as a muscle in spasm. Whatever it is called, it represents the instinctual response of the somatic self to "condense and close" to pain resulting from some type of trauma. In professional dancing, this blockage has to be re-opened both for the safety of the body and for graceful expression. To have blockage in one area will restrict movement throughout a far larger area and cause only greater injury. Thus, a dancer does a great deal of work to place cognitive awareness in damaged or pained tissue, e.g., by extending mindfulness inside an aching knee. The dancer is in essence blessing the wound or traumatized area with human presence in order to open it up to the field of life around it - one's dance partner, gravity, weight, musicality, breath - so that it can begin to heal. This approach to re-open and heal dance injuries correlates with the aspect of SR that encourages actively touching and connecting with emotionally painful areas. SR advocates that we be with our injured emotional areas in a healing way so that they too can open back to the field of life, back to weight, gravity, relationship and all the metaphoric relational components that one experiences in the "dance of life." It is what Self Relations refers to as "effective suffering" (Gilligan, 1997). The effectiveness of this approach in dealing with physical pain and dance injuries seems to validate further its application in the psychotherapeutic context.
For the dancer, the most difficult aspect of re-opening a physical injury is to trust that it is ok to feel into the pain, or to go into the pain of movement when a joint is traumatized. Again, the dancer must understand that the message of the pain is not life threatening or career ending, but is purely the message of "ouch." They must have faith in their ability to heal, and in their power to regenerate, in order to work out the sprain in an ankle or to continue to flex and extend spinal musculature when it is in spasm, massaging it out through movement. Many of the healing practices used by dancers stimulate the life force in the body, to re-engage it to the flow of life. For example, the practice of acupuncture doesn't overtly take pain away: When you poke a muscle with a needle it stimulates or calls life (qi) to flow through it. The flow of that life energy is what sweeps away the blockage, and consequently the pain. Most dancers prefer not to follow the traditional Western medical model of treating the symptom with pain killers, because such drugs do not address the larger issue of re-engaging the injured area with the rest of the life force moving through the body. And unless the blockage is re-opened to the flow of life, it will not heal, putting the dancer at greater risk of an even more severe injury.
It seems that the psychotherapist's role is in some cases similar to that of a skilled massage therapist, acupuncturist or dance coach. It is first and foremost to provide the message that this pain is not special pain. It is an ordinary pain of life, not to be taken too personally. And it is pain that is safe to relax into it. The therapist's role is also to help the client re-engage the injury with the flow of life. Emotionally, we as a species tend to withdraw from pain, cut it off and avoid all stimuli that would activate the pain, thereby preventing it from being connected to the flow of life. Thus, when a client withdraws from emotional pain, the therapist guides him or her into the experience and connects it back with the flow of life. It is the natural healing process by which the body and spirit can begin their natural course to regenerate and heal. In both dance and psychotherapy, the natural ingredient that activates the healing process is human awareness of the felt experience of the pain.

Act II, Scene I: Healing is a Process, Not a Finite State
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances:
if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
C.G. Jung (Cameron, 1992)
We all long for our own uniqueness and gifts to be seen by others. It seems an inherent part of the human psyche that is played out in many of our myths and stories, from Cinderella to Luke Skywalker. Dancers are a rare breed in that they often get to fully experience and exhibit their own uniqueness through their chosen art form. Dancing gives them a place in their lives to feel the variety of their different selves, to learn to sponsor them with their cognitive presence, and to have them witnessed and seen by the world. Thus, dance provides many opportunities for emotional healing and growth.
Of course, "healing" comes in many forms. Clients visiting psychotherapists may want to "get rid of something bad," or "make this bad feeling go away," or "help me kill 'it' off." In contrast, the healing we are referring to is based on the SR sponsorship principle of integrating a neglected self back into our core being. (Gilligan, 1997) It is like the ancient practice of Shamanism where through the ritual of soul retrieval, the Shaman journeys forth into the three worlds and uses his aides to help retrieve the parts of the soul that were lost through trauma, illness or some other type of deep wounding. He brings them back to the light of the upper world where they can be integrated back into the whole of the person (Matthews, 1995).
Dancing can provide opportunities for this type of healing in various ways. For example, a dancer is on occasion asked to portray an element of him or herself which he or she would prefer to neglect. This neglected self can thus be given some personal air time in rehearsal and in performance, where its truth can be seen and blessed. This in turn may allow the complementary personalities of the dancer more time to come through in daily life. The same is true of using SR in psychotherapy. The role of the therapist is to help the client become aware of the hidden character or feelings that are a part of their being. The therapist also helps to give these neglected "selves" airtime where they can be brought out into the world, to be seen, heard and blessed so that the client can begin to sponsor these parts of their being, both in performance and in real life.
Another way that the practice of dance facilitates healing is through its inherent physicality. The whole process of dance can bring health and vitality, a kind of somatic well being, that helps it be easier to bear the wounded selves in one's being. If you can feel your own vitality, you will be more able to feel and heal your wounds. In the words of Buddha, "To keep the body in good health is a duty … Otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear."

Act II, Scene II: Ineffective Suffering and Bad Trips
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
Anaïs Nin (Cameron, 1992)
Dancing's extraordinary potential for healing, is not always realized. It is our experience that dancers, in general, have a greater felt-sense awareness of their own physical and emotional suffering, primarily because they are required to spend so much time in their bodies. They are trained in acting and psychological techniques to access and isolate core parts of themselves - specifically the animal power of their raw somatic self, which is often accompanied by the sides of themselves that yearn to be seen as special. It can become terribly addictive to source one's most powerful selves, in the service of special states of consciousness. These states involve high levels of arousal and excitement, which present the problem of how to "come down" into calmness. To continue obtaining these "high" states, some dancers will do anything to quiet and escape the host of neglected selves that are concomitantly accessed. Cigarettes, alcohol and caffeine abuse abound. Anorexia is common. Other substance abuse occurs, as well as a number of other evasive techniques (not unknown to the layman), such as dissociation and trance states.
The only path out of these types of dissociate behaviors is through the hard core realization that we can never "rid ourselves" of these bad or uncomfortable feelings, and parts of ourselves that arise. We can only, in an ongoing fashion, sponsor and integrate them. (See Figure 1.) It is a daily practice of feeling the feelings, connecting them with our mature presence and expressing them in the world. As Gilligan (1977) notes, the expression may initially be quite "fressen," but in continuing the practice and integration these energies mature and become more "essen" in nature. (Gilligan, 1997) Professional dancers are given more overt opportunities to practice this process of connecting with their neglected selves. Unfortunately, due to the experiential demands and traditions of their profession, many subsequently react with a more pronounced aversion to the feelings that arise in their personal lives and attempt to control and ignore these feelings through addictions and forms of substance abuse.

Act III, Scene I: Cultivating "Specialness"
"Here in this body are the sacred rivers: here are the sun and moon as well as all the
pilgrimage places … I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body."
Saraha (Cameron, 1992)
Little worth is placed in our society on exploring and cultivating one's soul, uniqueness or individual gifts. In fact, many distractions and forces of alienation are in place to keep us from noticing our internal being and its potential. Our societal pace is so fast and the economic pressures so great that we often fear to feel the natural rhythms of our somatic self. This sets up a split between the inner and outer realities, and between the cognitive and somatic selves, such that an inner connection to the somatic self can be taken too far, to the point of self-absorption and self-indulgence. There is the risk of connecting to the somatic self without being grounded enough in the rational world - forgetting to take care of worldly needs like having sufficient income, caring for one's family, and completing mundane tasks like grocery shopping and seeing the dentist. Also, dancing can be exploited as a means to an end: to achieve fame, fortune, or love. These are serious considerations. A balance or middle path is very important. But in its purest form, the exploration and felt sense seeking of our unique gifts is both the means and the end, and potentially the fulfillment of our deepest longing. It is by experiencing ourselves that we can come to know others. And it is by feeling our own somatic aliveness, that we are also able to feel it in others. In the words of Lao-Tzu: "Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment." (Feng, 1972)
Discussing dance as a personal practice to explore and develop a richer connection with one's self is not to elevate it to some kind of spiritual panacea. Nor is it to suggest that dance is "the way" to achieve such a connection. It is just one of many body centered practices that can provide a path to take one closer to a more sacred experience of being. Martha Graham, despite her strong bias for dance as the pathway, beautifully summarizes the importance of the pursuit:
"There is a vitality, a life-force, a quickening
that is translated through you into action.
And because there is only one of you in all time
this expression is unique.
If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium
and be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is
nor how valuable it is;
Nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
of the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine, dissatisfaction,
A blessed unrest that keeps us marching
And makes us more alive than the others."
Martha Graham

Why does establishing a connection with the somatic self matter? Because it is the part of us that is truly alive. This consciousness in our body, is literally our life force, our qi. It is the force that moves through our physical body -- our physical awareness, our physical reality. It has a presence and awareness different from the cognitive self. It is the part of us which sees and feels the beauty inside the rose, its life force, its redness. It senses the aliveness in a cheetah running at incredibly speeds. It feels the beauty of a sunset. SR emphasizes the felt sense experience of one's own unique life force, as well as the felt sense of the life force in all other beings and objects, such as the life force running through a rose (Gilligan, 1997). Achieving this felt sense experience, feeling deeper and deeper into the somatic energy, is to commune with something spiritual. It's why making love, intense athletics, martial arts, dancing and meditation can be such rich, fulfilling experiences. They are a communion with the life force running through us.
The purpose of establishing a body-based practice is to put in place a daily ritual that enables us to connect with this aliveness in our beings. It is our somatic self that touches and connects with the energy of the world around us. It is through this way of being that we can begin to explore the depths of our longing, to discover the riches and special uniqueness we hold, and to bring these gifts into the world. Through this way of being we connect something larger than ourselves - the whole of life, the energy of the universe, the collective unconscious. Getting back into our bodies is the gateway. Without having a body-based connection -- an ongoing communion with the life force running through us -- life quickly becomes empty and meaningless. The step toward establishing a body-based practice may seem small but it is filled with the wonder of possibility. As Murray Louis (Louis, 1980) expresses it:
"When I reach too deeply, I can feel him. I can feel his presence. I can feel him reaching out, and I close my eyes and let him enter me. I dare not look. I am afire, I flame, he passes through. I hear him round the bend. I can breathe again. I am flesh again. I open my eyes to see where he has been, to see what he has touched. What if some day I should innocently open the wrong door and stand face to face with him? Would I be consumed? Would I be terrified of whom I might see? Is this why I close my eyes and open my senses when he appears? When he possesses me, whose eyes do I use? I know it is his handiwork when I cannot explain what I have done. Does this vague visage know me any better than I know him? Who would recognize their own soul if they should meet it?" (pp. 80-81)

References
Cameron, J. (1992). The Artist's Way. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Feng, G. and English, J. (1972). Lao Tsu Tao Te Ching. New York: Vintage Books Edition.
Gilligan, S. (1997). The Courage to Love. New York: Norton.
James, W. (1950). The Principles of Psychology. New York: Dover.
Louis, M. (1980). Inside Dance: Essays by Murray Louis. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Matthews, C. (1995). Singing the Soul Back Home: Shamanism in Daily Life. Rockport, Massachusetts: Elements, Inc.
Thich Nhat Hanh (1998). The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. Berkeley: Parallax Press



MeditationThrough Dance

by Iris J. Stewart

Dance as liturgy or ritual has always been a way to honor the sacred, the mystery, turning into the spiral of life and the universal, the ever-present flow of the Divine force. It has profound implications for healing, psychotherapy, spiritual growth, and the full unfolding of human potential. Sacred dance can be done by anyone and in any mode. It may be part of an ancient tradition or may emanate in the moment. It can range from simple walking steps in a circle to elaborately costumed processionals. When you can let go, the natural flow of energy dances you. It opens up the channels of the body to clear away old emotional blockages, belief systems that no longer serve, and memories the body has held onto long after their usefulness disappeared. We allow life to dance us again.

Bringing Sacred Dance Back to Life

In dance as ritual, our learning mode is reversed and the mind learns from the body. Dance is not only Language, it is also "listening." Listen to the sounds of the waves within you. Consciousness uses the power of listening to come into the being. As the skill of listening grows, consciousness expands; searching for our essence, what is truly us, our true self, we begin realizing on deeper and deeper levels that we are all the same. Dance integrates meditation and action, dissolving the barrier between contemplation and everyday life, garnering the energies of ruach, the breath of God.
Whether you dance in your own room, in a class or group, or before supportive spectators, you will come to feel and emanate a sense of oneness with the group, the audience, the world, and with humanity. Now you become the creator of your own dance, your own movement, the energizer of your own body, your own world, and the molder of your own destiny.
Freeing ourselves to refocus inwardly and in community allows us to see who we are, and so this will be a complex but at the same time a simplified process of self-discovery. In the beginning we will find many voices within us that are unknown, repressed, afraid to speak, and unaccustomed to spontaneous and direct expression. We will literally be using dance as a bridge between consciousness and the psyche. Through dance we tap into the body's unconscious memories, layer by layer. Then the healing begins. As we continue our discipline of movement and image dialogues, poetic and private insights emerge through relaxed and spontaneous expression to show us the way.

Creating Your Sacred Dance

The stage, the altar, the studio -- whatever space you designate -- is the sacred dancing ground, and the dancing time is time out of ordinary time. The dancers enter consciously, sensing the difference between the busy outside world and the dedicated dance space. This is the hallowed ground, dedicated to and ruled by forces that are not personal, not individualistic.
After one enters the sacred space there is, ideally, a period of quieting down. Physiologically, you might start with deep, slow breathing, bringing scattered thoughts to a still, introverted point of focus.
Here are some keys that will help your dance become more meaningful for you, which I derived in part from my work with the Dances of Universal Peace. Even one or two of these techniques will have quite a profound effect.
  • Let go of expectations and self-consciousness. Ability will come in time. Your dance is not an athletic competition or a formal presentation. It is a window through which we merge with the universal, satisfying the thirst that is in all our souls. It takes a while for the mind to yield control. Don't be surprised if the mind becomes rebellious, argumentative, or bored. Let it play itself out. This will give you time to develop a sensitivity to the environment and to the group energy, generating a transformative sensitivity to bodily communication while establishing communion with inner movements, inner dialogue.
     
  • Feel. The dances/rituals are designed to take us more and more into the universe of feeling. Resist the impulse to begin analyzing or judging; stay in the present, keep giving yourself permission to feel and allowing the dance to refine and purify your emotional life. Movement rituals can lead to states of calm peace or a joyous feeling. Simultaneously, while you enjoy the experience, practice keeping in your consciousness your connection to the earth plane, your earthly body, and the group body.
     
  • Breathe. Breath is life, movement, voice. A verse, a mantra, or a song can break habitual breath-holding and will train your breath for the extended exhalation that automatically causes a deep inhalation.
     
  • Listen to yourself and to others' voices recite the words or song, when vocalizing is included in your dance. Even if it is in another language and you do not fully understand the meaning of the words, listen to the sound. In Sanskrit, the sound itself has an impact. When you begin to listen, the voices automatically begin to harmonize. Find the center of the sound. Notice the energy rising.
     
  • Repeat. Ritual or liturgical dance is usually a simple formula repeated over and over again. This repetition takes you beyond the realms of everyday life through movement and mental attunement. The external simplicity of the ritual, rite, or ceremony hides a complex transference of knowledge, a message from antiquity passed down through generations, reaching us not in material form but in spirit through the body. Concentration on a sacred phrase or symbol and on the movement of everyone together will ultimately touch your being in a deeper and deeper way.
     
  • Create a dance space. For some dances you may want a dance floor design. Patterns direct and contain energy and flow, giving direction to the purpose of the dance. The design can be permanent or temporary, indoors or outside. It may be composed of seashells and driftwood, of rocks and sticks formed into a pattern, or of a drawing in the sand. Make a circle, double spiral, or labyrinth design with ingress and egress.
     
  • Move together. Resist the temptation to do individualistic dance when dancing as a group. You will be amazed at how much stronger the dances will be when you concentrate on harmonizing with the others and your ego-sense of yourself starts to disappear. Small groups that meet, with consciousness, on a regular basis will be much more effective.
     
  • Trust the dance. When you dance in a circle, the circle should be kept clearly a circle; it is good to place a special object or symbol or person, perhaps the drummer and the musicians, in the center from time to time. Begin with feeling your own body fully, then gradually become connected with the whole circle. Remember to make clear eye contact with others in the circle.
     
  • Music needs to be simple and rhythmic. The group movement is the focus; music accentuates the natural rhythm of the movement with the song, mantra, or sacred phrase. Drummers especially must bear this in mind, and avoid going off into self-expression.
     
  • Use a dancer's costume. Some dances or offerings are intensified by means of color, form, and materials. Costumes can lift a dancer out of her ordinary, everyday self, bringing her to a different state. For some, the ritual of donning a costume and the shedding thereof at the end of the ritual marks the boundary between the opposite realms of the personal and the archetypal, the divine and self. This is not to say that the costume always has to be ornate. Flowing gowns with kaftan sleeves, such as those worn by Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham in certain dances, are very powerful in their unpretentious simplicity.
     
  • Allow silence. After the sound, music, and movement stop, then enter into silence. In this silence one can absorb the qualities evoked during the dance. This is the most important part of the dance, so don't rush it. You are learning meditation through dancing, and learning the dance through meditation. Presence is heightened through silence, and there is a sense of the group's focused energy and the animation of the designated physical space, which becomes the temple, the sacred place.
     
  • Try again. It is highly probable that during some times when you are attending a workshop, dancing with your group, or practicing on your own, you will not feel connected. It is disappointing, I know, but you might be surprised, sometimes, to find that you feel the effects later. So, keep open for an "Ah-Ha!" wherever and whenever it happens.
     
  • Expect your life to change. The more you dance, the more you will find yourself in your natural pure presence as you move through the world. You will probably find, as I did, that you are able to prolong the calm and centered state of mind engendered through ritual dance in everything you do. At one point I discovered that just listening to particular rhythms or songs while driving along in my car could evoke that same sense of peace and attunement.
Move simply and slowly. Don't overact. Follow each move with your concentration, giving yourself and others an opportunity to meditate on your presence. At the physiological level, research in neurophysiology has shown that there is an information biofeedback process between your senses, muscles, and brain. Too much muscular effort overwhelms the brain's ability to make sensory distinctions and restricts the mind's ability to work on the body's behalf. Less muscular effort produces more sensory motor learning.
Repetition and simplicity activate your brain's movement centers and generate a flow of valuable information between your mind and your muscles and body. This approach is seen in yoga, t'ai chi gong, and other meditative practices. Automatically, as if by magic, tension, strain, fatigue, and discomfort will disappear as your neuromuscular system reprograms itself for better health. You will notice that this effect stays with you in all the days that follow.
Rituals proceed from a form or theme, but the form gradually melts as repetition imprints the mind and all move as one. Remember, an authentic ritual not only satisfies a momentary need but can also radiate exponentially to influence world consciousness.
This article is excerpted from the book Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance, by Iris J. Stewart. ©2000. Reprinted with permission of the publisher Inner Traditions International. http://www.innertraditions.com

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About the Author
Iris J. Stewart has taught dance and lectured on women's subjects for over twenty years. She is the founder of WomanDance, a troupe which performs interpretive dances that explore women's spirituality. To research this book, Steward visited archaeological sites throughout Europe, the Middle East, and South America. She lives in northern California. Visit her website at http://www.sacreddancer.com

189article: Somatic Practices and Dance: Global Influences

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  • BasicFred
    Nov 20 4:37 PM

    Somatic Practices and Dance: Global Influences
    Martha Eddy, CMA, Ed. D.
    ...I often begin the first class by asking, "Where is your mind?" Usually, the students will immediately point to (or place their hands on) their heads. However, several years ago one person offered a different response: He placed his hand on his heart. He also happened to be the only one in the class who was not an American. He was an African student from Nigeria. (Seymour Kleinman, 2001, 1)
    Introduction
    My main focus is to reveal the existence of global influences on the development and teaching of somatic principles and disciplines and to discuss why these influences are not in the forefront of somatic inquiry.   I hypothesize that the search for "the universal," or "the humanistic," or "the biological" as a through-line of body-mind investigation, has encouraged a mono-cultural approach to somatic pedagogy and to the promotion of the field.   Secondly, it is of interest to me that it appears that it has been through the work of those founders of somatic disciplines who are women, that it has become possible to more easily retrace some of these global influences on 21st century somatic studies. It also posits that through the lives and experience of women leaders more of an emotional voice enters the holistic paradigm.   This paper aims to raise questions.   It does not presume to be exhaustive in its pursuit of data regarding all the intercultural complications of somatic practices, inclusive of questions emerging from gender politics.
    At the joint conference Dancing in the Millennium in July 2000 (CORD with SDHS, DCA, NDEO, LIMS AND NDA among others), the program notes for the panel "Paradigms and Approaches: The Future of Somatics in Dance" read:
    In the past decade "somatics" has burst onto the dance scene. With the recent proliferation of practices, somatics has become an accepted mode of dance learning. However, despite the recent popularity of the term and its growing practices, somatics is not a monolith. [Dancing in the Millennium program, 2000 July 23, 9AM]
    Somatic work is often referred to as bodywork, body therapies, hands-on work, body-mind integration, body-mind disciplines, movement therapy, somatic therapy, movement awareness, or movement education (Eddy, 1991) and/or somatic education (http:/www.feldenkrais.com). Most currently those somatic disciplines that involve movement as a keystone of the learning process are now identified as part of the field of somatic movement education and therapy (http:/www. ISMETA.org).
    This paper is a continuation of the inquiry begun during the Dancing in the Millennium panel regarding the dissolution of any potentially monolithic views of the history and etiology of "somatics" as well as somatic movement applications in dance (Green, 2001; Fortin, 2000) with a specific eye to examining how cultural and religious movement practices from diverse cultures have provided philosophical underpinnings and influential theories and practices to the field. My methodology has involved literature searches and interviews. In this paper I hope to discuss, through selected stories, with emphasis on the lives of two women who have been progenitors of somatic movement disciplines (Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Emilie Conrad) that in many cases somatic practices often perceived as western concepts and constructs actually also have formative roots from cultures beyond the Euro-American sphere.    
                One question that may arise immediately is why the historical lineage of each somatic movement discipline is not more evident in dance teaching, discourse, or writing. I conjecture that in part dance educators lost the art of history telling during the period in which knowing what the roots of a given dance form was evident by simply stepping into the studio (e.g., in the Graham School or with a Graham teacher, one studies the Graham Technique). Now lineages are more complicated.   Sylvie Fortin (2000) makes a case for the current evolution of the field of somatics saying, "Indeed the field of somatics is growing in unexpected ways, as are its players who tend to eventually pursue a practice of their own design." (p. 1) From my experience in dance classes and in discussions about "dance and somatics" I have found that to take the time to cite one's more diverse influences is unusual.   
    While a part of the historical development of the field of "somatics" involved choices to acquire a type of meta-view; a view that stands back from distinct cultures and investigates the individual organism separate from any identity other than that of being human, the profound influences of Eastern and African movement concepts and practices have been seminal in the development of European and American somatic paradigms. And there has been, of course, a large degree of information flow between Europe and the Americas as well.   As students now more often have the privilege of studying dance, martial arts and other movement practices from teachers around the world it becomes more important to understand connections between them.
                Furthermore, somatic models within dance and education, as well as the "pure" somatic disciplines themselves, have been associated with diverse theoretical paradigms through the work of post-modernist scholars such as Jill Green (2000, 213-217) and Sherry Shapiro (1998). As I review the somatic literature, the most frequently noted paradigms are those characterized by an emphasis on a whole system perspective, ecology, feminism, spirituality, cultural pluralism, non-violent change, decentralization of decision-making, and a shift from outside authority to self-responsibility.    It is also the intent of this paper to trace the global trajectories of some of these perspectives.
    Hanna's Role in Setting the Stage for Somatic Inquiry
    Thomas Hanna, so-called father of the term "somatics", brought attention to the "soma" emphasizing the soma's alive and changing status, replete with cellular intelligence and a capability of perceiving itself.   Somatic awareness allows a person to glean wisdom from within (Hanna, 1986). "Living organisms are somas: that is they are integral and ordered process of embodied elements which cannot be separated either from their evolved past or their adaptive future. A soma is any individual embodiment of a process, which endures and adapts through time, and it remains a soma as long as it lives. The moment that it dies it ceases to be a soma and becomes a body.... At the center of the field of somatics is the soma--an integral and individual process which governs its own existence as long as it has existence"   (Hanna, 1976, 31).  
    Hanna also made a case for somatic thinking as a necessary extension of Darwinism.
    The Darwinian invitation was to explore the field of somatics, to construct a science of life that is founded on the model of life itself, to discover how the functions and structures of all living beings have emerged in this universe with a meaningful order that is their own and which cannot be reduced to lesser components.... The Darwinian goal was a science of living bodies with a theoretical foundation, which without compromising them, synthesized the established sciences into a general science of life. ...[T]he field of life has come about only to the degree that we have finally grown beyond the religious and metaphysical prejudices that have plagued the Darwinian view since its inception.   Happily the advances of the sciences during the past century and the multidisciplinary sophistication of the past decades have allied with broad cultural changes to spur this growth beyond the prejudicial barriers of a time past.   (Hanna, 1976, 30).
    Hanna also notes that in the late twentieth century dualism has been challenged by the notion of the complementarity of structure and function.   He adds that these relationships are in a state of constant change as is the soma and that this process of change is self-governed. The ever-changing and self-governing process of the individual soma is a given, which -- perhaps mistakenly, leads to a notion that an orientation to the individual versus its cultural context is central in somatic practice.   
    On the other hand, Hanna feels somatic inquiry has impacted on diverse intellectual and professional perspectives in western Europe and the United States.   For instance he states "the gradual acceptance of Darwin's somatic vision of continual genetic mutation" (Hanna , 31) opened the pathway for the work of Lorenz, Tinbergen, Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Birdwhistell, Polhemus, and Chomsky.   He goes on to say, "It is this same acceptance of "both-and" ambiguity of somatic process that allowed the gap between psychology and physiology, psychiatry and physical medicine to close up through the extraordinary therapeutic work of Wilhelm Reich, Raknes, Feldenkrais, and Lowen   (Hanna 1976, 31). Continuing with this Eurocentric discourse, he goes on to argue that somatic theory has also allowed a greater Western acceptance of Asian movement practices:
    It is the discovery of the functional and structural integrity of the somatic field that allowed Western scientists and scholars to make the belated discovery that the Asian martial arts and bodily disciplines of judo, aikido, t'ai chi, karate, yoga and tantra were predicated solidly on a somatic theory and not upon a religious pretense   (Hanna 1976, 31).
    This statement, while effectively making a case for the embodied nature of Eastern practices and the, at long last, appreciation of them by Western thinkers, indirectly strips each Eastern practice of its greater cultural and religious contexts, and thereby may have set a precedent to do the same for each related somatic discipline.
    Much of what Thomas Hanna published was in the '70s. He then died in a car accident in the early '90s. It remains a question in my mind whether, given Hanna's definition of the soma as in constant adaptation, not in isolation, but in response to environmental constraints, he might have come around to a scholarly investigation of global influences if he had remained alive. However, in his book, Bodies in Revolt , he argues for the need to keep a somatic perspective separate from social analysis. Why? One of the features of his somatic discourse can be interpreted as aspiring to be purely of the mind and body.   This view is devoid of social, relational, cultural and emotional context or correlates. In a lecture-demonstration I attended led by Hanna in 1989, during the Life in Motion conference at NYU, he talked about the somatic process as not involving any emotional content other than "feeling better" (Hanna, 1989). It seemed plausible that by not inviting emotional corollaries to mind-body experiences, clients did not share their emotions. Hence one seminal somatic voice contends that we can have access to wisdom through the body, however without social analysis, "religious pretense" or emotional response.   I contend that it is easier to "remove" emotional content if we disengage it from cultural context (replete with "religious pretense"). Is there a fear that when the organism is recognized fully, inclusive of the social, relational and cultural details of life that its emotions may burst forth, or even threaten? I add to this query, might this be more of a male construct?   It seems that it has been the leaders in the field of "somatics" who are women, that now more often model and thereby advocate for the importance of the "emotional body" in somatic engagement.  
    Voices of Women: Somatic Progenitors
    It is my hope that through examining the biographies of some of the progenitors of somatic movement systems, we can reclaim more cultural context and history. I hope also to posit that numerous somatic disciplines are the direct result of the interaction of cross-cultural currents that then took particular shape in the Americas. Furthermore, I choose to give attention to the unique voice of women and their role in the development of the field. For instance, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Emilie Conrad have strong voices within the somatic community but often remain unheard in wider circles.   Indeed it has been through the amplifying work of Don Hanlon Johnson and the organizational work of International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA) that their seminal work has become more known.   For this article, as dance professionals and far-reaching thinkers, it is commendable that Bainbridge Cohen and Conrad have been willing to share more about the generative force of some of their voyages to other cultures on the development of their work.
    In interviewing and studying the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Emilie Conrad, I absorbed numerous stories about experiences of embarrassment, of being shunned, of rage, of sadness, of isolation, of feelings of being bothersome, of feelings of being undervalued... Bainbridge Cohen's and Conrad's are the voices of women; as women have emerged as leaders of this field since the 1960's it is as if the emotional and expressive aspects of "the intelligent body" has gained strength.  
    Anna Halprin is one of the first women to use dance expression, together with touch to impact upon health and healing of physical as well as psychological imbalances. She uses therapeutic expressive tools to help people to move emotions into an integrative experience.   To quote the website of her school, Tamalpa,
    "Our focus on the body, movement and the expressive arts as a healing approach is based on the premise that the imprints of life events are housed within the body. When remaining at the unconscious level, these imprints may lead to imbalance and conflict; when explored and expressed consciously and creatively, the connection between body, mind and emotion make a vital contribution to the artful development of the self (http:/www.tamalpa.org)
    Feminist paradigms (such as the concept of matriarchal power and its transfer) vary across somatic practices. Certainly the attitudes women hold as they occupy leadership roles is important. It is notable that Anna Halprin, Emilie Conrad, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, and Sondra Fraleigh have not put their names on the body of work that each developed (vs. Alexander, Feldenkrais, Heller, Laban, Trager etc.).   Bartenieff, Rolf, Rosen, and Rubenfeld do use their names as signifiers of their systems.   It would be interesting to know more about the dialogue leading up to such a choice.   For instance, Bartenieff fought against the use of her name and continued to advocate for the training of Certified Movement Analysts vs. for instance, "Bartenieff Practitioners" (Hackney, 2002).   It was Bartenieff's students that finally insisted on the naming of her system as Bartenieff Fundamentals.   She herself focused her career on teaching Laban Movement Analysis now often referred to by her protégés as Laban/Bartenieff theory in order to keep the bodily sensitivity of her work more alive.
    In meeting the classic somatic model, emotional experience often times becomes neutralized or otherwise confined by the "universality" of bodily experience.   And this approach is not devoid of politics; Don Hanlon Johnson [1995, xvi] notes that this basic focus on the body stands in counterpoint to a culture that has denigrated the body.   However, by inviting diverse cultural views back into the discourse we may find that, in addition to the body, the body-emotion-mind-spirit continuum is more welcome, or at least more evident. It may be postulated that in a Euro-centric model we need to depend on women to more readily give voice to the emotional aspects of somatic work.    As we examine specific experiences of leaders in the field of somatic movement education and therapy, we find that the emotional experiences occupy an important place in the subtext of the work of the female founders, leading the field to new insights about the soma.   It may be this sensitivity to the emotional aspects of life that then influences their understanding of what type of impact is possible through the field - psycho-social change as well as body-mind awareness.   Without challenging the pluralism of religious possibilities, time may now be ripe to also find how providing cultural context may also support lively discussions about the details of spiritual beliefs and practices globally and how each has contributed to the development and practice of the somatic experience of deeper self-awareness.
    Cross-cultural Influences and Awareness
    Unfortunately, the theoretical discourse has not reflected constancy in contextualizing somatic experience. However, Kleinman among others (see opening quote) does acknowledge multi-cultural sources and conceptualizations of somatics. He talks about how the process of teaching students from different cultures informs his understanding of somatics.   To quote, "...the mind-body question, in cultures outside the Western world, is of little concern either on the practical or the theoretical level. As a result of these [teaching] experiences and my study of Western literature, I have come to the conclusion that the separation of mind from body in the West causes us to view persons in an "un-natural" way."   (Kleinman, 2001, 1)
    Asian Influences: Focus on the Development of Body-Mind Centering® (BMC(TM))
    Asian movement practices have exerted the most obvious global influence on major progenitors of somatic movement practices.   In particular, the work of Irmgard Bartenieff and Moshe Feldenkrais was influenced by each innovator's direct practice of an eastern martial art form. Bartenieff analyzed Tai Chi Chuan and studied Chi Kung (Bartenieff, 1980; Hackney, 2002), and Feldenkrais was one of the first Europeans to hold a black belt in Judo in Europe.
    Feldenkrais practitioner and teacher Alan Questel writes about Russian born Feldenkrais, who at age 13 moved to Israel, and eventually pursued two degrees in engineering and a doctorate in Physics.
    His own physical problems led him to a lifelong exploration of ways to improve our movement and functioning in general. His investigations reflected his various fields of expertise (physics, neurology, martial arts, cybernetics, body mechanics, and psychology) and resulted in a method that is a unique synthesis of science and aesthetics. (Questel, 2000, 2)
    Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) was a Rosacrucian (also spelled Rosicrucian) [Preston-Dunlap, V. 2002].   Dozens of documents discuss the oriental roots of Western mystical traditions. (http:/smithpp0.tripod.com/psp/id8.html, 1).    While Laban, Bartenieff, and Feldenkrais can be seen to have profited from exposure to Asian movement forms, I propose that rich sites for exploration can be found in the cases of two women who developed their views of somatic experience in part through dance. Each is now a sought-after leader in the somatic field   -- Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, an east coast founder of Body-Mind Centering, and Emilie Conrad, a west coast founder of Continuum.
    Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, an occupational therapist, Certifed Laban Movement Analyst, and dancer founded Body-Mind Centering® in 1973. Cohen works in a style reminiscent of complexity theory, with constants shifts in authority and awareness, moving attention from appreciation of the wisdom of babies and animals in exhibiting integrated movement, to the different cellular structures of the body and the diverse layers of tissue that we can experience. Spirituality is an unspoken but palpable component of her work. Body-Mind Centering is an in-depth exploration of experiential anatomy and physiology presented within a perceptual-motor framework. Consistent with Kleinman's discovery through his students Body-Mind Centering posits that "the mind" can be found in any and all parts of the body.   The mind, or intelligence, includes emotional experience.   It is of particular interest here that Bainbridge Cohen practiced Aikido both in the U.S.A. and in Japan where she was exposed to several other Japanese healing and meditative arts.
    In an appendix to her book Sensing Feeling and Action, entitled "Lineage of BMC--Homage to My Teachers" Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen cites over forty individuals. This lineage includes professionals from the United States, Asia and Europe. They include The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, childhood dance teachers, instructors from the Ohio State University Dance Department, Marion Chace (a pioneer in the field of dance therapy), Erick Hawkins, and André Bernard and Barbara Clark (all from the U.S.A.); Karl and Berta Bobath, Laban protégés Irmgard Bartenieff and Warren Lamb, and their colleague, Judith Kestenberg, and Adolf Haas (from Europe), and Yogi Ramira of India teaching in New York City (yogi and physical therapist), Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing of China ("master of t'ai chi, Chinese medicine, poetry and art"), and Haruchika Noguchi of Japan. Noguchi Sensai (founder of a Japanese style of healing called setai), "taught me a technique called katsugen endo, or Life-Force Movement," which Bainbridge Cohen has continued to practice daily for over 35 years. Bainbridge Cohen also cites Drs. Sam and Kuiko Inoue (traditional acupuncturists in Tokyo), Michio Hikizuchi (a disciple of Morihei Uyeshiba, the founder of the martial art aikido), and Eido Roshi (teacher of Zen).
    One radical aspect of BMC is that it teaches that we can consciously access both sensory and motor awareness of even those body parts that are deeply internal.   Much like yogis, BMC practitioners learn to become aware of and initiate movement from organs, fluids, and glands to bring balance to the organism.   Sound, touch and movement are tools for this embodiment process. In a recent interview, Bainbridge Cohen expounded on the evolution of physiological systems work (1973 - 1982). Bainbridge Cohen began a meticulous process of investigating and teaching each system (i.e., skeletal, ligamentous, muscular, nervous, glandular, fluid, organ, and of fat, fascia, and skin) developing approaches to embodiment to each body system over about a two year period but knew that even with such care and specificity, "we still hadn't touched a fraction of what I perceived" could be experienced. She began teaching organ work while living in Cape Cod. She taught it in New York on weekends. In the development of the "organ" awareness of her method, her yoga training with Yogi Ramira was of particular significance.
    Bainbridge Cohen integrated the movement practices she learned in Japan into her prior experiences with dance. In understanding the potential for embodying the nervous system her work with Naguchi Sensai was critical .   Naguchi Sensai described his work as working with the autonomic movement system.   Her initial dance study was improvisational, and in this sense related to Naguchi Sensai's system, Katsugen Endo. The Japanese practice "wasn't movement that was dance though, since it was without [focus on] external form. It involved being witnessed and experiencing energy without contact through touch." Bainbridge Cohen found the practice's resonance very powerful at various levels. Naguchi Sensai worked "off the body."   She was fascinated in that "he was even able to turn a baby in utero," confirming the neuro-developmental aspects of   her work   (Bainbridge Cohen, 2001). Her time with Naguchi Sensai (1970 - 1973) also taught her numerous other lessons.   She recounts the Japan experience:
    It was a mix of formality and informality.   In studying Katsugen Endo with Naguchi Sensai, when you first went you had a helper.   They did their movement practice as they guided you. It was all done through magnetic guidance.   It is in contrast to Authentic Movement in that you are being witnessed by the 'universal source,' except for the first few times when an assistant would stay near you.   It was more like a prayer.   With hands off the body they were guiding you, like in a dance.   Once you found your own movement it was between you and the universe.   Like Authentic Movement it was discovering movement from within rather than copying an external form.   The way that you generally started was sitting in a vertical position, finding the movement of your spine; you could go anywhere from there.
    Bainbridge Cohen also found that in Japan, there is a different sense of "public" and "private."   Studying with Naguchi Sensai there was private space within a public space, a huge room with couches all around.   People were always sharing the space; some people lounged. At the other end of the room was a stage and near it private, individual sessions were held.   It wasn't totally private though either, other people were quietly present (Bainbridge Cohen 2001).
    While Bainbridge Cohen notes that such general aspects of the culture inflected her learning there, she also notes that despite the notion of Japan as an island monoculture, she did experience regional differences in her travels throughout the country.    And, this process of learning wasn't always an easy one. In her Aikido classes in Japan, Bainbridge Cohen recalls feeling "awkward because I felt I was in the way of the other students.   I would stand and watch. I met Len studying Aikido in NY. The experience in Tokyo at the dojo was difficult because I was a beginner and a woman. I was not comfortable; I didn't understand the language, or the foreigner's "gaijin" experience."   However, in Shingu Bainbridge Cohen felt incredibly welcome and invited to practice. In her little one-room home with shared kitchen and bath and only curtains as doors (where she and Len went to study with another teacher), she felt at home. Her comfort had perhaps less to do with movement systems and pedagogy than it did with a sense of cultural adaptation. She recalls about her life in Shingu:
    There was sewage, no door, so little in terms of worldly goods. There was so much spirit and kindness, though, that we were so rich. You can't call it poverty because no one there was poor.   It's just that we didn't have the modern way of living. In Shingu, [people] shared generously of the little they had. We just soaked up the kindness.   There was a big contrast between here and Tokyo where I felt that I wasn't good enough. Here In Shingu I was embraced. [Cohen, 2001]
    Bainbridge Cohen and her husband lived for several months in Shingu. She characterizes her period of living in Japan as challenging--"except in Shingu, [where] I was just in delight." In Tokyo, Bainbridge Cohen roles were complex, "I was a sensai, a wife and a mother." She also continued to dance. She experienced great joy while in Tokyo as she studied with Mieko Fuji, a modern dance teacher.   During this time she helped to establish a school for occupational and physical therapists.   Her role was to develop the curriculum for working with patients with physical disabilities. This curriculum became a foundation for her later work.   While in Japan, Bainbridge Cohen often found herself having difficulty working because of
    ... my process oriented way, which is intuitive, creative and an improvisational style.   There they were more interested in linear form and being able to answer the questions correctly.   All had to be simplified to meet the ability to understand the English.   We had to use a translator -- that takes more time, so I had much of my own and the Bobaths' articles translated. The people were all wonderful.   It made me communicate verbally more specifically and linearly.   This attempt to communicate in this more formal way became an important seed for the BMC work; it became more based in combining the anatomy or physiology and forced me to articulate it more specifically and in a linear way. It was a beginning for the work I do now, because it wasn't improvisation. I found I could 'do the structure.' It was a great springboard, bringing science and art home. [Bainbridge Cohen, 2001]
    Bainbridge Cohen traveled to Japan with her husband, Len Cohen, who already held a black belt in Aikido, having studied with Yamada Sensai in New York City. When I asked Len to reflect on what influence his engagement with Aikido had on BMC, he humbly stated, "I did not create BMC; that is Bonnie's," but he did note that Aikido provided certain lessons that pertain to BMC:
    [In Aikido] you are relating to someone as a whole complex of body-mind who has intention and attention. You have to start where you meet. You have to make it up as you go along. You can't have it all planned out. You don't know what you will come up against... In Aikido, you need to be prepared to put it all together. Unlike dance, your partner may be trying to do you harm, so it brings up other kinds of resources of attention that you might not have in other types of improvisation.    [Cohen, L. 2001]
    Len Cohen also cautioned me about the problems of generalizing Asian culture, though he added: "In the far east, there is a way of looking at things that is not just linear.   The work in Aikido helps to shape how you start and where you go."
    Sy Kleinman confirms Len Cohen's observation when he quotes another influential Asian thinker, Yuasa: "True knowledge cannot be attained simply by means of theoretical thinking, but only through 'bodily recognition of realization.'" Kleinman continues: "that is, [true knowledge occurs] through the utilization of one's total mind and body. Simply stated, this is to 'learn with the body,' not the brain." (Kleinman, 2001, 26 - 27).   So far we have seen how the Asian experience establishes and confirms the body-mind relationship, all within the context of spiritually derived practices.   As Bainbridge Cohen describes her experience of putting her non-linear thinking into linear form for a "just not linear" culture we learn of frustration, appreciation, delight and isolation.   These emotions are also accepted and accessed through a somatic lens.
    When she came back to the US, she also had a difficult time communicating to her peers what she had learned abroad.   She continued to study with teachers from around the globe.   Bainbridge Cohen was also trained by Irmgard Bartenieff, an émigré from Nazi Germany, and founder of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, among several other European influences. She met Bartenieff in 1966, six months after she had started intensive study with Erick Hawkins. Ultimately, the principles and techniques Bainbridge Cohen developed in Body-Mind Centering merged the intuitive and structural lessons from these diverse sources, European and Asian.

    African Influences on the Development of Continuum

    The migration of a holistic paradigm from the African diaspora is also critical to recent developments in somatic practices. Within the somatic movement field one discipline in particular is closely associated with African influences. That is the work of Emilie Conrad, called Continuum. Conrad grew up in Brooklyn, NY as the grandchild of holocaust survivors. Her childhood was gruesome and fraught with abuse. She found dance to be a liberating force, and when she found Katherine Dunham she retraced Dunham's path to Haiti. She developed a somatic system that is based in fluidity, much like the fluid forms of trance dance. However, in the publicity materials for her technique, this phase in her development is often excluded.
    Emilie Conrad was influenced not only by Dunham, but also by the work of the anthropologist and experimental filmmaker Maya Deren. Conrad [2001] moved to Haiti, where she lived for 5 years (1955-1960), during a time of intense political upheaval. The post-coup militia reigned, and in 1957 the army organized the "election" of the brutally repressive "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Conrad remained in Haiti after Duvalier's installation, working as a choreographer for 2 years.
    Conrad's time in Haiti marked her first exposure to a non-industrial society, and she was compelled by the history of a culture that had been recorded through movement forms. Both African and indigenous Caribbean movements had been sustained over time through dance, and her first-hand experience of these meaningful traditional dances changed her conceptions of dance's significance. In her writings on Continuum and indigenous dance, she states that she physically internalized the influence of African culture during her years in Haiti.
    After Conrad came back to the US, she studied with Valerie Hunt in 1974 at UCLA. Her goal was to make her accumulated knowledge universally accessible--to broaden it beyond a folkloric experience and make it the basis for a technique of communication of the organism in its environment. Conrad's work uses non-culturally specific terms such as the "cellular world" to describe a technique for the freeing up of bodily energy. In this respect, Continuum resembles yoga, in that it moves through physiological premises toward sacred movement and spiritual force. But despite the universalism of her terminology, in her biographical writing Conrad attributes her initial insights to the knowledge she gained through her Haitian experiences. Somatic exploration and application offers her a mode of communicating this knowledge to a wider audience, but she recognizes the importance of the culturally specific dance of the Haitian divinity Dambala in her internalization of embodied knowledge. Dambala's movement, Yanvalou, is reminiscent of the motion of waves, or of the rippling movement of a snake. This movement became an inspiration for her own work in biological movement.
    Just as Bainbridge Cohen sought to make Body-Mind Centering accessible to a global audience, Conrad was moved to translate her Afro-Caribbean experience so that Westerners could understand it - focusing on the universality of the biological experience.   Ironically, many people are now more comfortable with traditional practices from other cultures than they are with Western translation and integration systems.   The International Somatic Movement and Therapy Association chose to identify the field of somatic movement education and therapy with "mind-body disciplines," inclusive of   tai-chi and chi kung, as part of their work with the Federal Department of Education and the Occupational Network.
    In a section of her self-published text Life on Land (interestingly, a section that is not included in Don Hanlon Johnson's [1995] Bone, Breath, and Gesture , a series of articles and interviews of founders or representatives of 17 different somatic systems), Conrad reveals a great deal about the Haitian influences on her thought:
    1953. I am nineteen years old.
    A friend told me about the Dunham School. Katherine Dunham, a dancer-anthropologist, had gone to the West Indies in the nineteen-forties and was enthralled by the sacred dances of Haiti. My ears perked as I listened. I shivered. I could feel a hand at the small of my back, pushing me.
    Fresh from the streets of New York I entered the magic of the Dunham School and left my confused life behind. The blaring trumpets of Tito Puente melted into the drums of Yanvalou.
    Oh yes.
    I danced and danced. All my furies could finally shape themselves into the fast intricate movements of my feet.   My angry back took on the arch of a wild animal and screamed out the pain that haunted me.   My neck loosened, a snake seeking its den, and suddenly city eyes turned toward the moon...
    My back arched and I was free! Myself! No past - no history - just me now! This life pulsing in me, these steps on the floor, knees bent, snakes are blessing the ground in ancient memory...
    Yes!
    I couldn't get enough.   Every day, seven days a week I was there. Hours and hours of feet caressing floor hours of hearing drumming voices my life disappeared into the song of Damballah.
    I was coming home.
    1955. I'm twenty-one years old.
    Inspired by Katherine Dunham, I arrive in Haiti to see for myself - hear for myself - smell for myself.   (Conrad, no date)
    Despite her initial sense of Haitian dance's ability to liberate her from her personal history, in Haiti she came to understand dance's capacity to communicate biological knowledge across diverse histories.   To do this she chose to let go of the dance form itself and to implode it into equally powerful, microcosmic movement explorations.   What remains problematic is how others can trace these roots to derive this knowledge.   It is not atypical for cultural researchers to mythologize or dehistoricize the details of artistic expression (Campbell, 1997). However, I would like to suggest that it is more in keeping with the underlying empowerment principle of somatic learning to contextualize a learning process within its full cultural upbringing.    This may be easier when the dance form itself remains central (consider Dunham) even if modified for new periods and locations.   However as somatic inquiry finds more venues for discourse it seems plausible to include time to discuss historical antecedents in detail.
    Pedagogical Implications
    Both Bainbridge Cohen and Conrad were powerful dancers and dance advocates who absorbed and appreciated the lessons of other cultures. It therefore seems central to mine these contextual stories, the historical references, missing from the standard teaching so that students can have access to a wider understanding.   This marked gap in the dialogue of somatic inquiry should prompt other questions:
    •  When and how is it most appropriate to credit the originating sources of somatic movement philosophy?
    •  What supports soma and somatic modes of learning in oppressed cultures?  
    •  What supports healthy access to somatic practices in capitalistic cultures?
    •  How can we teach somatic practices and philosophy with intercultural sensitivity?
    •  Why don't we automatically teach with this sensitivity?
    •  How does this discussion relate to the place of identity politics in 21 st century cultural discourse?
    Surely some of the somatic silence is due to a lack of precedence, as well as a desire for the universality discussed above. This relates to the question of identity politics.   When is it important to claim an identity even as only a trace relationship?   Kuan-Hsing Chen says a performance artist
    "is skeptical about the   poststructuralist trend of cultural studies that has abandoned identity politics, because it is precisely the notion of identity that provides the foundation for political alliance in the Third World context (Chen 1996, 41).
    One might ask if Third World alliance is the concern of somatic educators.   Taking a holistic view it certainly can be.   Silence or minimal dialogue within the somatic field is also influenced by the current western cultural preference to exchange information quickly; an oxymoron when deeply investigating somatic processes.   Nevertheless time and space remain constant criteria in the shaping of curricula and promotional materials (Eddy, 2000). We laud the emergence of full stories, especially those that arise out of a rich lifetime of exploration, such has occurred with BMC and Continuum.   One hopes that we have finally arrived at a phase in which we can begin to take the time to uncover unacknowledged influences and hear the stories underlying each discipline.   In my own experience there are creative ways to briefly recall our history.
                Such range of investigation, however, begs the question: once we recognize the current potency and liveliness of holistic movement experiences across cultures, might we begin to question the necessity of somatic disciplines?   Kleinman notes that some of his Asian students find the question of where the mind is located is irrelevant (Kelinman, 2001, 1).   Mightn't we conclude that the best path would be a return to a true learning of, for instance, indigenous dance or healing forms?   Or, as globalization comes full circle, and we find ourselves retracing these complex trajectories, we might in fact find that there exists the possibility of some true amalgam of East and West that is useful to preserve or develop. Such hope is indicated in the following incident I experienced in my own teaching: a student of mine from China who was skilled in Chinese traditional dances spoke of having had a rich education in the history and meaning of Chinese philosophy in relationship to dance. She had been performing ribbons dances since childhood, and now was with us training in somatic education at Teachers College as part of her graduate studies in dance education (Eddy, 2001b). In her Chinese dancing, the concept of center and centering was often emphasized. However, she shared that it wasn't until she studied the Bartenieff Fundamentals and the Body-Mind Centering approaches to movement that she had an experiential base for the philosophy. She claimed she finally felt "center" and "centered".
    When we dig more deeply into the development of the various paradigms the somatic model has come to be associated with, we can gain more specific knowledge of global influences. I would posit that certain principles of somatic work are foreshadowed in a number of Asian and African traditional movement styles, however these remain to be researched:
    •  The whole system perspective is embedded in Afrocentric models, as reflected in the unification of mind-body and spirit, but more importantly the omnipresence of   "the circle," the dance and communication formation that supports the communication in community.
    •  Ecological constructs emerge in such Eastern principles as the oneness of yin-yang, and the cycling of destruction and construction evident in the Shiva principle of Hinduism.   Joseph Campbell, married to dancer-choreographer Jean Erdman often juxtaposed dancers and icons of Shiva to depict this phenomenon   (Campbell, 1978).
    •  Spirituality is central to various traditional forms of Asian and African education, medicine, and philosophy, even if it is not articulated through specific religious forms.
    •  Female and/or matriarchal power is acknowledged in numerous cultural contexts in Asia (e.g., mother as controller of household economy) and Africa (e.g., matriarchal lineages).
    •  Nonviolent change is a concept central to a number of movement forms. For example, aikido epitomizes the development of a martial art that negates aggression. Self-defense is achieved when the attacked person transforms the attacker's energy avoiding violence as much as possible (Eddy, 2001a).
    •  Decentralization of decision-making can be found in various Asian and African movement practices.
    It is my belief that somatic practice, characterized by a first-person experience within a cultural context, can encourage a move toward a more politicized stance that enables a critique of existing dance, arts, and educational institutions, as well as the agency and empowerment of individuals. In current practice, in my observation, some somatic disciplines are taught in a style that could be characterized as authoritarian. Indeed, many holistic, indigenous practices exist or co-exist within hostile authoritarian cultures. It is imperative that we begin to question whether these practices actually bring wholeness to the individual or to the group, given the structures within which they are taught.
    As an educator I am moved to take some time with this last theme--the question of a pedagogical paradigm shift from outside authority to self-responsibility. A major part of the conception of internalized authority found within the somatic model, in contrast to the medical model, is the notion that wisdom emanates from the soma, and direction for decision-making can emerge from inquiry into one's own somatic experience. This notion (which necessarily puts into question the authority of the teacher, the system, and even the emotions communicated through the pedagogical encounter) is represented in numerous Asian practices. Ironically, part of the process of coming into self-responsibility is an educational process. Somatic education asserts the need to learn through active engagement in the body. This notion has global roots, with global political ramifications.
    These questions can profitably be explored through somatic research--though they are by no means entirely new. In the U.S.A., the case has been made repeatedly that children across all class backgrounds have not necessarily been given the opportunity to learn how to activate their responsibly within a democratic society (Dewey, 1938; Block, 1997). A major educational proponent of the education of the democratic citizen was John Dewey. Kleinman makes a connection, with interesting pedagogical implications: "Yuasa's language [here] is reminiscent of John Dewey, who viewed every act as a 'bodying forth of the mind' and learning as a function of the entire organism." Dewey insisted on learning through doing and this insistence is attributed to his 35 years of study with   F. M. Alexander (1869-1955) founder of the Alexander Technique.   Dewey found Alexander's work both practical and scientifically sound, so much so that he wrote the introductions to three of Alexander's books. "Basic among these ideas was a thorough-going acceptance of the principle of mind-body unity, which Dewey--like Alexander--believed was the "missing link" in the current theories of both physiologists and psychologists." (Goldberg,2001 )   Alexander developed his work in England and also taught in Melbourne, Australia. While Alexander is not known to have been directly influenced by another culture's movement practices, his work has been compared with "practical Eastern spiritual philosophies" (Johnson, 88) and he his niece Marjory Barlow (1995, 87) shares many of his principles through the lens of Eastern spiritual traditions.   She quotes him as saying "I believe in everything and I believe in nothing." And she goes on to say "To me, he was the most religious person, in the real sense, of anybody I have ever met." (88).  
    For Dewey and pragmatists such as Alexander there is an echo to constructs from other cultures,
      "thought and action are inseparable; therefore, the mind cannot be located in a specific place, but is everywhere in the body. The implication of this position is that human behavior cannot and must not be subdivided into bits and pieces. We think and act as total, unified organisms. Therefore, our approach to teaching and learning should reflect this.   (Goldberg, 2001)
                Sy Kleinman, who above explicitly linked Dewey's philosophy to the teachings of Yuasa, insists that a full acknowledgement of the pedagogical implications of the education of the "whole" person is essential to achieving progressive pedagogy. Educator Alan Block (1997) concurs, going so far as to say that schools do violence by not allowing movement and somatic awareness to factor into the curriculum.   Until we absorb and practice physical ways of learning, we might argue that we are not fully claiming our individual authority, that which underlies our democratic intelligence.
    Concluding Remarks
    Finally, what I am suggesting is that the erasure of non-Western cultural contributions to somatic inquiry has been linked to a failure to realize fully the progressive promise of holistic educational practice. What has been lacking is an acknowledgement of cultural pluralism in context.   Separation of church and state do not mean we can't and shouldn't speak of religious practices across cultures or that we should avoid spirituality at school.   Moving On Center, a somatic movement education certification program deliberately housed in Oakland, CA allows personal and group forms of spiritual exploration to emerge within the context of its "social somatic" work.   (Eddy, 1995).   Public school advocate Linda Lantieri (2000), in her book Schools with Sprit, espouses the importance of inner work within education and looks to the arts and socio-emotional expression, inclusive of physical movement as potent vehicles for such connections.
    Whereas progenitors of somatic thinking may cite their influences with great respect, little is done in most classrooms to examine the political or historical context of these influences be they intellectual, physical, emotional or spiritual. It is incumbent upon us to dig up these histories.   As somatic pedagogy stands, an understanding of holistic thinking and behavior as learned from non-Western cultures is not necessarily conveyed during the training process. Unlike dance education contexts in which guest artists are contacted and brought from around the world into full exchange, students and teachers in somatic education contexts do not commonly seek out opportunities to meet with professionals from other cultures in order to inform the work's development with a direct understanding. One might argue that by simply immersing in the body within a given somatic practice, the individual will discover what is important for the individual, inclusive of social and cultural insights. However in ending, I wish to suggest that when we explicitly investigate beyond the needs of individual, through a global lens, filled with the details of life, we bring awareness to the organizational systems, (e.g., ecological, biological and social) that are more able to meet the needs of individuals. Through global exchange we may find richer secrets to questions of authority, power, healing, and access to each of these.   Furthermore, we need to establish precedents for the crediting of sources of thought and movement practice in classes, publications, and in performance literature. The choice to name who has taught us, clarifies our history.   This is helpful as more practices are developed that blend influences.   Respectful awareness of the influences of specific people and cultures on current somatic thinking is critical to the continuance of a healthy transmigration of empowered movement behavior worldwide.

    Works   Cited
    Bartenieff, Irmgard. 1980. Body Movement Coping with the Environment.   Philadelphia: Gordon & Breach.
               
    Block, Alan. 1997. I'm Only Bleeding: Education as the Practice of Violence Against Children. NY: Peter Lang.
               
    Bainbridge Cohen, Bonnie. 2001.   Telephone Interview.   August 30.   Amherst, MA.
    Bainbridge Cohen, Bonnie.   2002. Personal Interview.   May 12.   Chilmark, MA.
    Bainbridge Cohen, Bonnie.   1995. Sensing Feeling and Action: The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering . Northampton, MA: Contact Editions.  
    Campbell, Joseph. 1978. Lecture. May 8, 1978.   "Shiva." NY: Theatre of the Open Eye.
    Campbell, Joseph. 1997. The Mythic Dimension: Selected Essays: 1959 - 1987 .   NY: Harper Collins Publisher.
    Chen, Kuan-Hsing.   1996.   "Not Yet the Postcolonial Era: The (Super) Nation-State and the Transnationalism of Cultural Studies: Response to Ang and Stratton." Cultural Studies Journal 10,1. New York: Routledge.
    Conrad, Emilie. 2001. Telephone Interview.   August 23.   Santa Monica, CA.
    Conrad, Emilie. 2001. Personal Interview.   September 30. NY, NY.
    Conrad, Emilie. n.d. "Barbara." In   Life on Land .   Santa Monica, CA: A Continuum
    Publication.
    Dancing in the Millennium, 2000.   Program Schedule: Dancing in the Millennium: An International Conference. July 23, 9AM.   Washington D.C.

    Dewey, John. 1909. Moral Principles in Education . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

    Dewey, John. 1938.   Experience & Education. NY: Collier Books         
    Eddy, Martha. ed. 2001a. Conflict Resolution Through Dance and Movemen t.   North Chelmsford, MA: CustomBooks.
    Eddy, Martha.   ed. 2001b. Movement Retraining: Principles of Perceptual-Motor Development Experiential Perspectives from Bartenieff Fundamentals, Body-Mind Centering and Other Somatic Disciplines .   North Chelmsford, MA: CustomBooks.
    Eddy, Martha. 2000.   "Access to Somatic Theory and Applications: Socio-Political Concerns."   Proceedings of the International Conference: Dancing in the Millennium, 144-148. Washington DC.
    Eddy, Martha. 1992. "Overview of the Science and Somatics of Dance ." Kinesiology and Medicine for Dance. 14 (1)   20 - 28.
    Fortin, Sylvie. 2000.   "Somatics in Global Circulation." Paper presented at International Conference: Dancing in the Millennium July 23, 2000; 9AM.
    Goldberg, Marion, 2001 , The Insiders' Guide to the Alexander Technique Web Site.   Alexander Technique Center of Washington, D.C   http://www.alexandercenter.com/jd/index.html
    Green, 2001. Social Somatic Theory, Practice, and Research: An Inclusive Approach in Higher Education Dance.   Proceedings of the International Conference: Dancing in the Millennium, 213-217. Washington DC.
    Hackney, Peggy. 2002. Personal Interview; 9-19-2002. Oakland. CA.
    Hanna, Thomas. 1976. "The Field of Somatics."   Somatics .   Autumn issue, 30 -34.
    _______. 1985-86.   What is Somatic?   Somatics. 5 (4), 4 -9.
    _______. 1989. A Primer in Somatic Education . Life in Motion, The Body/Mind Connection; Change, Optimal Health and Productivity; A Conference for Somatic Educators and Health Professionals.   March 30 - April 2, 1989. NY: New York University.
    International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. 2002. http://www.ismeta.org/MemberOrganizations.htm
    Johnson, Don Hanlon, ed. 1995.   Bone, Breath, and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment . Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
    Johnson, Don Hanlon, ed. 1997. Groundworks: Narratives of Embodiment.   Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
    Kleinman, Seymour. 2001. "Moving Into Awareness" http://www .coe.ohio-state.edu/skleinman
    Lantieri, Linda. ed. 2000.   Schools with Spirit.   Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers. Beacon Press.
    Preston-Dunlap, Valerie. 2002. Personal Interview.   August 3, 2002. Rio de Janiero. Brazil.
    Questel, Alan. 2000.   The Feldenkrais Method®. http://www.feldenkrais.com/questel1.html   The Feldenkrais Guild, Portland, OR.
    Schirle, Joan. 1987. "A Conversation with Marjory Barlow." In Bone, Breath, and
    Gesture: Practices of Embodiment . Edited by Don Hanlon Johnson. Berkeley,
    CA: North Atlantic Books.
    Shapiro, Sherry. 1998. Dance, Power and Difference: Critical and Feminist Perspectives on Dance Education.   Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
    Tamalpa Institute.   2001. http://www.tamalpa.org/HTML/Home.html
    Yuasa, Y. 1987. The Body: Toward An Eastern Mind-Body Theory. (T. P. Kasulis, ed.) Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
    Martha Eddy, CMA, Ed..D., is a co-founder of Moving On Center - School for Participatory Arts and Research in Oakland, CA, and a master teacher of Body-Mind Centering (BMC) and Laban Movement Analysis (LMA).    In 1990 she founded an ISMETA-approved Somatic Movement Therapy Training that blends BMC and LMA approaches to somatic work, now affiliated with Moving On Center.   She taught dance and somatic theory in the department of Dance and Dance Education at Teachers College for ten years.   She currently is the Coordinator of the Wellness Center at the Riverside Church in NYC.   She frequently lectures nationally and internationally
  • .

    66Fwd. article - Therapy as Dance and Dance as Therapy A Cross Pollination

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    • Laurie Corzett
      Aug 14, 2004
       

      Therapy as a Dance and Dance as Therapy: A Cross Pollination

      By Bill Hedberg and Jessie Shaw

      Program Notes
      This article is a lecture about heaven. It discusses the interconnection between the practices of dancing and Self Relations. Our desire is that it will pique the reader's interest and curiosity enough to abandon lectures about heaven. May all its readers go off in pursuit of a body-based practice that will help them discover and deeply feel their own aliveness and bring their unique gifts into the world.
      The authors bring these thoughts to you based on their own experiences with dance and SR. Jessie Shaw is currently obtaining a Masters degree in acupuncture and has studied SR with Stephen Gilligan over the past 4 years. Although not a professional dancer, she has intensely pursued classical ballet as her physical practice over the past nine years. Bill Hedberg has been a student of SR for the past five years. He uses the principles of SR coupled with his own past experiences as a professional dancer (Elisa Monte/David Brown, Douglass Dunn, Tunisian National Ballet) to guide and inform his teaching and training of professional dancers at his studio, Gyrotonic® on the Hudson in New York City.

      The Overture
      "A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind."
      Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Cameron, 1992)
      As human beings we all carry with us wounding, strengths and longings that propel us through life, like a large wave under the board of a surfer. Sometimes we experience the peak of riding the wave, sometimes we experience near falls off the board, and sometimes we purely crash and burn fighting against the strong undertow that feels like we will be forever lost. This is called the cycle of life. It's so easy to talk about as our "story," but it can be both euphoric and agonizing in the flesh of daily living. SR is a practice that helps one navigate the rapids of life: the joys, the tragedies, and the sufferings that life entails. It is a process of transformation that entails the full owning and full being of all that one is in a fashion that is open and all inclusive, on a second-to-second basis.
      This article doesn't spell out the principles of SR. Stephen Gilligan (1997) has already done so in The Courage to Love. We use his principles as the underlying epistemology for this article, like an alphabet that can be strung into many different sentences, phrases, paragraphs and stories. Taken in this light, the principles and practice of SR, while originally proposed within a psychotherapeutic context, can be extended across many contexts that comprise the state of human living.
      One such context is the world of classical and contemporary modern dance. Dancing is a vivid metaphor for the principles of applying SR because it is by nature a combination of the body, the mind, and an audience. Dance is a discipline, a practice and a way of life, that when done well, epitomizes the essence of SR. For to dance well, one must develop the ability to hold multiple awarenesses at the same time: somatic self (body), cognitive self (mind) and the field (audience). It is the kind of dancing we experience at a phenomenal performance when an artist captivates us through her ability to express a deep emotion with the simple turn of a wrist, or the mere showing of her back.
      Realizing the SR principle of mind-body unity, shown in the cognitive self and the somatic self integrating into a generative relational self, is one of the differences that makes a difference in achieving human excellence in any field of human endeavor, whether it be dance, art, choreography, music composition, athletics, theatre or scientific thought. It seems to us that no matter the field, excellence cannot be achieved either from a purely cognitive or somatic position. Only when the two are connected and in communion do great performances or works of art occur. This is why Gilligan's (1997) references to great individuals in a variety of fields seem so relevant: Einstein's descriptions of where his ideas came from; Michael Jordan's "zone;" Mozart's perfect musical offerings. Inspiration and genius are clearly at work, but these giants also achieve a connection between body, mind and the collective unconscious that takes their endeavors to a level higher than what seems humanly possible.
      This article seeks to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of the SR principles through the metaphor of dance and the actual practice of dancing. It also examines how the use of SR in performance based dancing (whether it be classical ballet, modern, or jazz), can take us beyond "good dancing" to the realm of extraordinary peak experiences - into the world of "magic performances." Thus, the first step in the practice of SR might be considered "remedial" (training, taking class), with the next being "generative" -- applications that lead to advanced creativity and "in the zone" experiences. As an old Zen teacher remarked, "Enlightenment is an accident, but a good practice makes you accident prone."
      Toward this enlightened end, the article discusses the principles of SR and their relation to dance. Specifically, it addresses: the formation of the relational self and its importance to dance and expressive movement; the inherent difficulties in feeling and connecting with the somatic intelligence of the body; a practice the dancer or artist can use to help build connection and relationship between the cognitive and somatic selves; a discussion of pain and physical injury, and how dancers' approach to healing these traumas is analogous to the healing of emotional pain and suffering as discussed in SR; health and healing as an ongoing process which dance and physical practices greatly facilitate; the addiction inherent in "high states" - of which dance is one; and finally, a discussion of how dance or other body-based practices can facilitate heightened awareness and spiritual consciousness.

      Act I, Scene I: There Are Two of Us
      "What I am actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us,
      and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly."
      Shakti Gawain (Cameron, 1992)
      We have observed in our experience in the field of professional dancing that some dancers progress quickly, while others who train as hard or harder, make little or no progress. We believe that the more successful dancers are able to better meet the considerable challenge of connecting their somatic and cognitive selves, and to feel and achieve the middle ground of the "relational self." (Gilligan, 1997) In the dance world, we believe the relational self corresponds to what is referred to as one's "performance presence," i.e., a heightened state of awareness where one is able to track numerous internal and external inputs (music, other dancers, audience response, breathing, choreography, story line, images), while also listening to and sponsoring the creative impulses that arise from the somatic being (discovered emotions, spontaneous musical phrasing, unpracticed nuances in the shape and expression of the body itself). The underlying concept of the relational self or of having performance presence is that there are two of us occupying the space of our being: (1) a cognitive self that is primarily the verbal, visual mind, and; (2) a somatic self that can be experienced primarily through kinesthetic sensations (emotional and physiological) of our body. The intelligence of the somatic self is perhaps the most difficult to understand, and can perhaps best be explained through an example. When one slips on a set of stairs, the hand will automatically grasp out for the railing. The question might be, "who saved you?" This reaction is not the working of the cognitive mind, but is the physical intelligence of the somatic self at work. It automatically, without the intervention or direction of our mind, grasps firmly to protect our life. In dance, it appears that the somatic self is up to something more than "protecting." It is longing for freedom, spontaneity, nonverbal expression, and connection. Thus, the somatic self comes to life in dance by guiding the positioning, spacing and angling of the body, the timing of the movement, breath, and musculature contraction and release - all synthesized into a pure celebration of movement.
      The interacting of these two selves in dancing can perhaps be exemplified by William James' metaphor of the horse and rider. (James, 1950) Taken first from the traditional perspective of mind over body, one's conscious mind or cognitive self might be seen as the rider giving instructions to the somatic self, the horse. The cognitive self, using visual and auditory symbolic representations, instructs the somatic self of where to go next, and the position or shape of the body to achieve. The somatic self interprets these instructions through having rehearsed the sequences and positions, and understands in its non-verbal fashion, what is expected. From an Neuro-Linguistic Programming modeling perspective, one might hypothesize that simply using the "natural," most eloquent images or auditory cues to inform the body could be enough to create art, and that sense of grace that one sees in good dancers. However, this is not the case because artistic, expressive dance does not come from a mind over body perspective. All that the use of this model ensures from a dance training perspective is that the dancer will move across the stage at the right time using the right positions. It does not guarantee or predispose the dancer toward an artistic, graceful performance that connects with the audience. And it does not address two equally disturbing dance states where the relational self is not present: dancing that is stiff and mechanical (cognitive dominance) or dance that is overly emotional and self-indulgent (somatic dominance). (Gilligan, 1997)
      For artistry to occur, the artist must create the experience of a relational self, where mind and body interact, work together, and are equally guided by each other. This relational self does not occur until the cognitive self surrenders into a relationship with the somatic self in such a way that both are equally present at the same time. Returning to the horse and rider metaphor, one must take into account the nature of the relationship between horse and rider. In great myths of heroes and their trusted steed, such as The Lone Ranger and Silver, or Xena, Warrior Princess and her beautiful stallion, the two go in search of adventure with a joined intention and responsibility. The two work as a team, each with his or her individual strengths and intelligence. The rider treats the horse as an equal and allows the horse to take initiative, and at times lead him. It is not a dominant or abusive relationship; but rather one of love and respect. The rider learns to listen to and heed the horse's intuitions. The horse and rider become one, and act with a shared intelligence.
      This is the state of being that the true artist strives to achieve, and it is an apt metaphor for the relational self emphasized in the SR model. It is more than an advocacy for self love. It requires that the dancer have an inherent curiosity, respect and appreciation for this ultimate intelligence that resides within his or her body, and the discipline to undergo the training that helps cultivate a loving relationship with it. This can be a challenge in many ways. Not only does it require an awareness that this other intelligence exists; it also requires a great deal of commitment and trust to develop the connection.

      Act I, Scene II: Lose Your Mind, Come to Your Senses
      "No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature.
      I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never knew existed."
      Roger Bannister, on breaking the four-minute mile (Cameron, 1992)
      To gain a felt sense awareness of somatic intelligence one must first be willing to feel. It is only through the conscious mind's felt sense of the somatic self that the harmonized intelligence of both systems can be generated. In actuality, few of us orient to the feelings of the somatic self willingly. After all, the somatic self is typically numbed, abused and ignored in our cultural and familial histories. We typically do not listen to the calling and feelings of our somatic self until it is "leaking" so badly that we can no longer ignore it, e.g., through a symptom such as depression or anxiety. SR emphasizes this "problem" as a solution, that "something is waking up" within the person (Gilligan, 1997). Our typical reaction to the awakening of the somatic self is to try to ignore or numb it further. We rarely welcome or bless the difficult and uncomfortable feelings that arise within our beings. Often, it is only when we can no longer turn away from the somatic self that we finally open to deeply connecting with it. At such times, hopefully, a person can find a safe place, e.g., therapy, body work or a body-based practice, to learn to associate rather than dissociate from the somatic self.
      Learning to "lose the mind" of cognitive control and trust the somatic self is especially crucial for dancers, who rely on it for their art. Most dancers practice and develop a basic level of connecting their somatic and cognitive selves because of the pressures of the performance environment. They train to not be disturbed by negative emotions that might overwhelm them in a performance, such as anxiety, fear and memory blocks. Because such states can throw a dancer right out of his or her body with disastrous results in the midst of a performance, practicing repetition in the studio becomes a crucial part of training both to build endurance and to generate pure muscle memory. If the mind totally blanks during a performance, the only hope is that enough time has been spent in the studio in connection with the somatic self. Because the somatic self has its own unique intelligence it can remember how to keep going until the cognitive self can re-engage. It can pull a dancer through those rough moments. This is one type of a "lose your mind" state that confronts most dancers, and that they all address out of pure need.
      However, there is another type of "lose your mind" experience that is more generative in nature. It is a learned state of "being present" in the studio and on stage where the deep self or soul can be touched and expressed through the movement. This is the aspect of the art of dance that is the ultimate challenge. It is an exploration through the choreography and movement whereby the somatic behavior or positions act as a rolodex through different selves. It is the idea of exploring oneself through the choreography, and becoming aware of the feeling tone that reveals a moment of a self with each movement, gesture or body posture. Some of the selves revealed will be "neglected selves" (Gilligan, 1997), or parts of the self that the dancer feels uncomfortable feeling. Or it could be a self or feeling tone locked in the past that the dancer especially likes to feel, despite its lack of maturity, e.g., a young self that loves being reassured and praised, or an indignant self that would like to act out in rehearsal when things are not going well. The generative artist is one who can feel and express all of these different selves and not lose him or herself in the experience. It is the concept of "not too tight, not too loose" (Gilligan, 1997), the capability to hold the present self and the neglected at the same time.
      One way of thinking about this practice that the artist follows in order to build this capability is shown in Figure 1. The stages of the practice are: (1) fully feeling the neglected self; (2) adding a mature presence and understanding to know the neglected self is not "all" of them but a "part" of them; (3) holding both of these felt senses at the same time to facilitate; (4) bringing the neglected self into the "land of the living" in a sponsored way so that its presence can be integrated and transformed. (Figure 1.)
      Figure 1
      The failure to integrate the energies of the somatic self can be quite frustrating. In the world of dance, this corresponds to times when the performer falls too deeply into their emotionality on stage, so that the audience feels a sense of over indulgence that causes them to disconnect from the performer. Even though the performer may feel that he is expressing his deepest truth or soul, the audience is not able to witness the event. The only way a performer can get beyond this hurdle is to connect the somatic feeling with a cognitive mature presence so that both may be present at the same time and expressed through a soulful, caring touching of the somatic tender soft spot. When this somatic self is sponsored and connected with a mature presence, it can be felt in the world and the audience is able to empathize and co-feel the emotion being expressed. Without the soundness of this type of cognitive-somatic connection, the audience may not be able to empathize with the emotion being expressed and may even feel like they are being imposed upon or violated. This will usually cause them to disconnect from the dancer and from the intention of the performance itself.
      Artists talk about the experience of a relational self in different ways. They may describe having a really juicy part or character to portray. Or they may describe a state wherein there is an experience of release in the body, such that movement takes on an unselfconscious grace where the body, core and limbs, integrate and express themselves in an effortless, united way. The artist who has gained experience in connecting and holding these two presences may take the experience a step further by asking, "Is this the appropriate self to touch at this point in the choreography? Is it the part of myself that best expresses the emotion or story I want to tell at this point in the dance?" This is where the art of dance and the creative process begins to reveal itself for both the artist and audience alike. It is the generative application of the practice of SR.

      Act I, Scene III: The Pain of Pain
      "Our suffering is us, and we need to treat it with kindness and nonviolence.
      We need to embrace our fear, hatred, anguish, and anger.
      'My dear suffering, I know you are there. I am here for you, and I will take care of you."
      Thich Nhat Hanh (Thich Nhat Hanh, 1998)
      Another reality of being a dancer relevant to SR work is physical pain. Pain and injury are daily realities of the professional dancer. A dancer tweaks muscles, compresses joints, puts parts of the body into spasm, and often deals with chronic exhaustion and fatigue. When a dancer is on tour and doesn't have an understudy, there is no choice but to perform. Thus, the dancer must learn how to delve into the proper naming of the message of pain, and learn how to re-open condensed tissue. Many names exist for a negative body reaction to pain or injury. In SR, it might be called "neuromuscular lock" (Gilligan, 1997); acupuncture describes it as "blocked energy;" and in dance, it is referred to as a muscle in spasm. Whatever it is called, it represents the instinctual response of the somatic self to "condense and close" to pain resulting from some type of trauma. In professional dancing, this blockage has to be re-opened both for the safety of the body and for graceful expression. To have blockage in one area will restrict movement throughout a far larger area and cause only greater injury. Thus, a dancer does a great deal of work to place cognitive awareness in damaged or pained tissue, e.g., by extending mindfulness inside an aching knee. The dancer is in essence blessing the wound or traumatized area with human presence in order to open it up to the field of life around it - one's dance partner, gravity, weight, musicality, breath - so that it can begin to heal. This approach to re-open and heal dance injuries correlates with the aspect of SR that encourages actively touching and connecting with emotionally painful areas. SR advocates that we be with our injured emotional areas in a healing way so that they too can open back to the field of life, back to weight, gravity, relationship and all the metaphoric relational components that one experiences in the "dance of life." It is what Self Relations refers to as "effective suffering" (Gilligan, 1997). The effectiveness of this approach in dealing with physical pain and dance injuries seems to validate further its application in the psychotherapeutic context.
      For the dancer, the most difficult aspect of re-opening a physical injury is to trust that it is ok to feel into the pain, or to go into the pain of movement when a joint is traumatized. Again, the dancer must understand that the message of the pain is not life threatening or career ending, but is purely the message of "ouch." They must have faith in their ability to heal, and in their power to regenerate, in order to work out the sprain in an ankle or to continue to flex and extend spinal musculature when it is in spasm, massaging it out through movement. Many of the healing practices used by dancers stimulate the life force in the body, to re-engage it to the flow of life. For example, the practice of acupuncture doesn't overtly take pain away: When you poke a muscle with a needle it stimulates or calls life (qi) to flow through it. The flow of that life energy is what sweeps away the blockage, and consequently the pain. Most dancers prefer not to follow the traditional Western medical model of treating the symptom with pain killers, because such drugs do not address the larger issue of re-engaging the injured area with the rest of the life force moving through the body. And unless the blockage is re-opened to the flow of life, it will not heal, putting the dancer at greater risk of an even more severe injury.
      It seems that the psychotherapist's role is in some cases similar to that of a skilled massage therapist, acupuncturist or dance coach. It is first and foremost to provide the message that this pain is not special pain. It is an ordinary pain of life, not to be taken too personally. And it is pain that is safe to relax into it. The therapist's role is also to help the client re-engage the injury with the flow of life. Emotionally, we as a species tend to withdraw from pain, cut it off and avoid all stimuli that would activate the pain, thereby preventing it from being connected to the flow of life. Thus, when a client withdraws from emotional pain, the therapist guides him or her into the experience and connects it back with the flow of life. It is the natural healing process by which the body and spirit can begin their natural course to regenerate and heal. In both dance and psychotherapy, the natural ingredient that activates the healing process is human awareness of the felt experience of the pain.

      Act II, Scene I: Healing is a Process, Not a Finite State
      "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances:
      if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
      C.G. Jung (Cameron, 1992)
      We all long for our own uniqueness and gifts to be seen by others. It seems an inherent part of the human psyche that is played out in many of our myths and stories, from Cinderella to Luke Skywalker. Dancers are a rare breed in that they often get to fully experience and exhibit their own uniqueness through their chosen art form. Dancing gives them a place in their lives to feel the variety of their different selves, to learn to sponsor them with their cognitive presence, and to have them witnessed and seen by the world. Thus, dance provides many opportunities for emotional healing and growth.
      Of course, "healing" comes in many forms. Clients visiting psychotherapists may want to "get rid of something bad," or "make this bad feeling go away," or "help me kill 'it' off." In contrast, the healing we are referring to is based on the SR sponsorship principle of integrating a neglected self back into our core being. (Gilligan, 1997) It is like the ancient practice of Shamanism where through the ritual of soul retrieval, the Shaman journeys forth into the three worlds and uses his aides to help retrieve the parts of the soul that were lost through trauma, illness or some other type of deep wounding. He brings them back to the light of the upper world where they can be integrated back into the whole of the person (Matthews, 1995).
      Dancing can provide opportunities for this type of healing in various ways. For example, a dancer is on occasion asked to portray an element of him or herself which he or she would prefer to neglect. This neglected self can thus be given some personal air time in rehearsal and in performance, where its truth can be seen and blessed. This in turn may allow the complementary personalities of the dancer more time to come through in daily life. The same is true of using SR in psychotherapy. The role of the therapist is to help the client become aware of the hidden character or feelings that are a part of their being. The therapist also helps to give these neglected "selves" airtime where they can be brought out into the world, to be seen, heard and blessed so that the client can begin to sponsor these parts of their being, both in performance and in real life.
      Another way that the practice of dance facilitates healing is through its inherent physicality. The whole process of dance can bring health and vitality, a kind of somatic well being, that helps it be easier to bear the wounded selves in one's being. If you can feel your own vitality, you will be more able to feel and heal your wounds. In the words of Buddha, "To keep the body in good health is a duty … Otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear."

      Act II, Scene II: Ineffective Suffering and Bad Trips
      "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
      Anaïs Nin (Cameron, 1992)
      Dancing's extraordinary potential for healing, is not always realized. It is our experience that dancers, in general, have a greater felt-sense awareness of their own physical and emotional suffering, primarily because they are required to spend so much time in their bodies. They are trained in acting and psychological techniques to access and isolate core parts of themselves - specifically the animal power of their raw somatic self, which is often accompanied by the sides of themselves that yearn to be seen as special. It can become terribly addictive to source one's most powerful selves, in the service of special states of consciousness. These states involve high levels of arousal and excitement, which present the problem of how to "come down" into calmness. To continue obtaining these "high" states, some dancers will do anything to quiet and escape the host of neglected selves that are concomitantly accessed. Cigarettes, alcohol and caffeine abuse abound. Anorexia is common. Other substance abuse occurs, as well as a number of other evasive techniques (not unknown to the layman), such as dissociation and trance states.
      The only path out of these types of dissociate behaviors is through the hard core realization that we can never "rid ourselves" of these bad or uncomfortable feelings, and parts of ourselves that arise. We can only, in an ongoing fashion, sponsor and integrate them. (See Figure 1.) It is a daily practice of feeling the feelings, connecting them with our mature presence and expressing them in the world. As Gilligan (1977) notes, the expression may initially be quite "fressen," but in continuing the practice and integration these energies mature and become more "essen" in nature. (Gilligan, 1997) Professional dancers are given more overt opportunities to practice this process of connecting with their neglected selves. Unfortunately, due to the experiential demands and traditions of their profession, many subsequently react with a more pronounced aversion to the feelings that arise in their personal lives and attempt to control and ignore these feelings through addictions and forms of substance abuse.

      Act III, Scene I: Cultivating "Specialness"
      "Here in this body are the sacred rivers: here are the sun and moon as well as all the
      pilgrimage places … I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body."
      Saraha (Cameron, 1992)
      Little worth is placed in our society on exploring and cultivating one's soul, uniqueness or individual gifts. In fact, many distractions and forces of alienation are in place to keep us from noticing our internal being and its potential. Our societal pace is so fast and the economic pressures so great that we often fear to feel the natural rhythms of our somatic self. This sets up a split between the inner and outer realities, and between the cognitive and somatic selves, such that an inner connection to the somatic self can be taken too far, to the point of self-absorption and self-indulgence. There is the risk of connecting to the somatic self without being grounded enough in the rational world - forgetting to take care of worldly needs like having sufficient income, caring for one's family, and completing mundane tasks like grocery shopping and seeing the dentist. Also, dancing can be exploited as a means to an end: to achieve fame, fortune, or love. These are serious considerations. A balance or middle path is very important. But in its purest form, the exploration and felt sense seeking of our unique gifts is both the means and the end, and potentially the fulfillment of our deepest longing. It is by experiencing ourselves that we can come to know others. And it is by feeling our own somatic aliveness, that we are also able to feel it in others. In the words of Lao-Tzu: "Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment." (Feng, 1972)
      Discussing dance as a personal practice to explore and develop a richer connection with one's self is not to elevate it to some kind of spiritual panacea. Nor is it to suggest that dance is "the way" to achieve such a connection. It is just one of many body centered practices that can provide a path to take one closer to a more sacred experience of being. Martha Graham, despite her strong bias for dance as the pathway, beautifully summarizes the importance of the pursuit:
      "There is a vitality, a life-force, a quickening
      that is translated through you into action.
      And because there is only one of you in all time
      this expression is unique.
      If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium
      and be lost.
      The world will not have it.
      It is not your business to determine how good it is
      nor how valuable it is;
      Nor how it compares with other expressions.
      It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly,
      to keep the channel open.
      You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
      You have to keep open and aware directly
      of the urges that motivate you.
      Keep the channel open.
      No artist is pleased.
      There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
      There is only a queer, divine, dissatisfaction,
      A blessed unrest that keeps us marching
      And makes us more alive than the others."
      Martha Graham

      Why does establishing a connection with the somatic self matter? Because it is the part of us that is truly alive. This consciousness in our body, is literally our life force, our qi. It is the force that moves through our physical body -- our physical awareness, our physical reality. It has a presence and awareness different from the cognitive self. It is the part of us which sees and feels the beauty inside the rose, its life force, its redness. It senses the aliveness in a cheetah running at incredibly speeds. It feels the beauty of a sunset. SR emphasizes the felt sense experience of one's own unique life force, as well as the felt sense of the life force in all other beings and objects, such as the life force running through a rose (Gilligan, 1997). Achieving this felt sense experience, feeling deeper and deeper into the somatic energy, is to commune with something spiritual. It's why making love, intense athletics, martial arts, dancing and meditation can be such rich, fulfilling experiences. They are a communion with the life force running through us.
      The purpose of establishing a body-based practice is to put in place a daily ritual that enables us to connect with this aliveness in our beings. It is our somatic self that touches and connects with the energy of the world around us. It is through this way of being that we can begin to explore the depths of our longing, to discover the riches and special uniqueness we hold, and to bring these gifts into the world. Through this way of being we connect something larger than ourselves - the whole of life, the energy of the universe, the collective unconscious. Getting back into our bodies is the gateway. Without having a body-based connection -- an ongoing communion with the life force running through us -- life quickly becomes empty and meaningless. The step toward establishing a body-based practice may seem small but it is filled with the wonder of possibility. As Murray Louis (Louis, 1980) expresses it:
      "When I reach too deeply, I can feel him. I can feel his presence. I can feel him reaching out, and I close my eyes and let him enter me. I dare not look. I am afire, I flame, he passes through. I hear him round the bend. I can breathe again. I am flesh again. I open my eyes to see where he has been, to see what he has touched. What if some day I should innocently open the wrong door and stand face to face with him? Would I be consumed? Would I be terrified of whom I might see? Is this why I close my eyes and open my senses when he appears? When he possesses me, whose eyes do I use? I know it is his handiwork when I cannot explain what I have done. Does this vague visage know me any better than I know him? Who would recognize their own soul if they should meet it?" (pp. 80-81)

      References
      Cameron, J. (1992). The Artist's Way. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
      Feng, G. and English, J. (1972). Lao Tsu Tao Te Ching. New York: Vintage Books Edition.
      Gilligan, S. (1997). The Courage to Love. New York: Norton.
      James, W. (1950). The Principles of Psychology. New York: Dover.
      Louis, M. (1980). Inside Dance: Essays by Murray Louis. New York: St. Martin's Press.
      Matthews, C. (1995). Singing the Soul Back Home: Shamanism in Daily Life. Rockport, Massachusetts: Elements, Inc.
      Thich Nhat Hanh (1998). The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. Berkeley: Parallax Press.
      Home     Back to Published Papers & Research

      75Re: [healingdance] Fwd. article - Meditation Through Dance by Iris J. Stewart

      Expand Messages
      • Iris J. Stewart
        Aug 20, 2004
        Hi Laurie and All:

        I was getting ready to reply to your "welcome to the group" and your
        "request for your stories", when you sent
        out the article: Meditation Through Dance from a website. It is
        actually taken from my book, "Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance: Awakening
        Spirituality Through Movement and Ritual" (c.2000, Inner Traditions,
        Intl.). My website is www.SacredDancer.com if you want to find out
        more.

        So, it is still a small world on this vast Internet, eh? And,, indeed,
        I have heard from people in Brazil, France, Japan, U.K., etc. who have
        bought my book. Amazing. And the latest news is that is going to be
        published in Europe soon.

        As for my dancing, present time, I am involved in Sacred Circle Dance
        (from Findhorn in Scotland), Dances of Universal Peace (Sufi Dancing),
        both of which do wonderous things for me. More about the magic of
        dancing in a circle if there is interest.

        Dance on,

        Iris

      • 81New to group

        Expand Messages
        • Nada Khodlova
          Aug 24, 2004
          Hello,
          I am new to healing dance yahoo group. I am a dance/movement therapist in
          NYC. I recently started working as a supervisor of creative art therapy at
          women's shelter serving women who have a mental illness and chemical
          addiction...also generally most have been severely physically, sexually,
          emotionally abused for lengths of time. I am also getting ready to start a
          women's group at a Balkan community center. In addition I facilitate Sacred
          Circle dance here in NYC and in Long Island.

          My greatest passion is in reweaving the ancient arts, especially dance, into
          the daily facets of our lives. This I believe is one of our only hopes in
          bringing sanctity and healing to our world. By honoring our bodies, our
          selves, each other, the earth, community, lifes transitions and rites of
          passages through dance we can reclaim peace. We need to rebuild our sacred
          dance villages.

          I am very interested in all aspects of healing dance. I am interested in
          discussion about how dance can be used politically, where great healing
          needs to take place.

          Peace,
          Nada Khodlova

        • 82New to the group

          Expand Messages
          • yehuditsc@earthlink.net
            Aug 25, 2004
             My name is Yehudit and I found out about this group from Iris Stewart. Thankyou Iris for making an announcement on the Northern Ca Sacred Dance Guild list. I am a member of SDG and will be leading an ecstatic healing dance on Friday night during the Mini Festival October 22 - 24 in Berkeley CA.   
             
            The ritual dance is called SEFIRA - Ecstatic Prayer Ritual. SEFIRA is a ritual journey that celebrates the source of our powerful and passionate being.  By weaving healing chants, expressive movement and guided Kabbalistic meditation, the intention is to restore a balance between the Divinine Masculine and the Sacred Feminine parts of ourselves. 
             
            The dance is a rhythmic seven-part dance ritual, ignites our internal soul flame through a Four World and Seven Step ritualized dance process. The ritual is based on an ancient Jewish prayer service that incorporates the wisdom of the Kabbalah Tree of Life. This ecstatic prayer dance model is rooted symbolically in the elements of the Four Worlds: earth, water, air, and fire.  
             
             I draw my material from Biblical and Midrashic literature, Jewish Mystical texts, cross-cultural folkways, and contemporary composers. Since 1995, I have been experimenting with prayer dance rituals. I was on Rev. Matthew Fox's "Techno Cosmic Mass" planning team for 3 years and DJ'd many of the rituals during that time. I was instrumental in bringing Global Fusion dance music into the ceremony.  
             
             Using 25 years of expressive arts and spirituality education, I weave ancient and contemporary sacred modalities together. The result is enthusiasm, harmony and connection to the people who participate. Techniques include Hasidic niggunim (wordless melodies), multicultural chants, improvisational movement plus extraordinary ancient and contemporary music from around the globe.  
             
             Back in the early 80's I worked with Steven Halpern and his meditation music. I taught some of the first classes and workshops in music and meditation in Miami. We used the Chakra Sound and Color healing method Halpern wrote about in Spectrum Suite. I combined this with visual imagery I learned from Shakti Gawain and GIM techniques (Guided Imagery in Music) Helen Bonny. These workshops were well received. I created a music and very primitive lightbox show using large lightbox and visual images from nature as a meditative focal point. 
             
             During the early 90's I began to incorporate meditation, chant, and movement as a preparation for a creative activity. It was here that I discovered that my creativity was enhanced if I engaged in a combination of these expressive arts and spirituality techniques, before I began to create a new piece of artwork. With this physical movement preparation, my hands became very warm and the sculpture designs just seemed to flow and pour out of me in perfect form. 
             
             At that point, I began to study the creative process and how it works. By the mid 90's I found a teacher of Jewish Mystical Practices. I began to study Kabbalah and found that the basis of this mystical practice is based on Creation - ing. This has led me on a 10 year study into the inner meanings and workings of the Kabbalah Tree of LIfe. In the late 90's I spent time studying at the University of Creation Spirituality, R. Matthew Fox's Graduate School, as well. 
             
             Now I am experimenting with the rhythmic and melody patterns for each of the sefira. I am finding that when these patterns are combined with certain rituals, it is very healing.  
             
             I am still discovering more material on different Jewish sages who have worked in this field. It is a lifelong study and sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming. So I take a rest from the academic part of it and move into the intuitive creative plane 
             
             I hope that this gives you a little insight into who I am...I look forward to hearing your stories, and learning more about healing dance on this list. 
             
             Blessings 
             Yehudit 
             
            MC Rituals  & Events
            Ceremonies & Celebrations with Spirit!
             
            Yehudit Steinberg-Caudill M.Ed.
            Ritual Specialist
             
            A program of Ohr Shekinah,
            a 501c3 nonprofit religious organization

          • 100Dances of Universal Peace

            Expand Messages
            • Carl Karasti
              Sep 10, 2004
              Greetings,

              I'm new here, having just learned about this group from someone in
              another group. I just read and scanned through the archived messages
              and noticed that the Dances of Universal Peace (sometimes called Sufi
              Dancing) have barely been mentioned here a couple of times.

              I lead the DUP in northern Minnesota - being only one of hundreds of
              leaders throughout much of the world. These Dances are quite different
              from the dancing most of you have been involved with, and the dancing we
              do is really secondary to the experience which is really focused on
              creating an altered state of consciousness which can open one to
              mystical insights. As one way to share from my experience with the
              Dances of Universal Peace, I'll include something I wrote a while back.
              If anyone here is interested, I'll be happy to share more.

              Carl


              The Dances of Universal Peace - Feeling the One on the Breath


              Feeling the names of the One on the breath,
              feeling the vibrations of the names in the body...
              in the heart center ... that is the essence of the
              practice of the Dances of Universal Peace.

              We sing the names of the One and many
              other sacred phrases from many of the world's
              spiritual traditions ... major and minor religions alike.
              We sing in English, in Arabic, in Hebrew, in Aramaic.
              We sing in Greek, Latin, Tibetan, Avestan, Pali and Sanskrit,
              in Hindi and Japanese and Native American and African languages.
              We sing words and phrases that have been sung and chanted
              for centuries and for millennia, adding to and being fed by
              vibrations that have been experienced and used as
              sacred tools leading toward and flowing through
              the mystical experiences of all people
              in all places in all times.

              We sing the names over and over again while
              also repeating simple folk dance movements...
              usually in a circle, sometimes with partners and,
              if with partners, then usually progressing around
              the circle, continually meeting new partners...
              continually meeting new manifestations of the One...
              continually being met as a manifestation of the One...

              This is moving meditation...
              We move in rhythm, in harmony, in unison.
              Our movements help draw meaning from within.
              We do body prayer ... prayer with our whole being...
              We pray with our minds, our voices, our bodies, our hearts.
              We pray with our physical body as well as our subtle bodies.
              opening all aspects of our beings to whatever might
              come through to us during our dance experience.

              Zikr is Remembrance; Zikr Allah, Remembrance of the One.
              Typically, "doing zikr" means repeating the standard
              "La illaha illa 'llah, Hu" or any part of it,
              and we certainly do that ... along with simple movements...
              in the Dances, some of which are called zikr dances.
              Yet, every dance is an opportunity to "do zikr"...
              an opportunity and a reminder to remember the One...
              that we are the One ... the One in multiplicity.

              We move beyond premise into experience...
              we transcend our small, earth bound selves...
              we expand beyond limitations of situation and habit...
              and then we return ... carrying something back...
              into our ordinary lives that may no longer be
              quite so ordinary anymore.

              Perhaps we will remember to remember
              a little more often.

              Everything we think, feel, say, do...
              Everything we experience...
              Every step...
              Every breath...
              Every heartbeat...

              Everything can become zikr...


              © 2003 Carl Karasti


              If you'd like to learn more about the
              Dances of Universal Peace, you are
              welcome to visit our web site at....

              http://DancesOfUniversalPeace.org/

// posted by libramoon @ 6:35 PM
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