Dancing is an ongoing dialogue between flow and form: forming in flow and flowing in form. Rhythmic flow is a source for dance, an underlying current—not just the drum machine pulsing out the heartbeat to get us moving, but polyrhythmic pathways inherent in our body systems. Flow enhances our ability to move rhythm throughout our structure, and to feel it opening stuck places from inside. One’s internal, individual flow meets the external rhythms of music, other dancers, and the choreographer’s directions. The invitation is to maintain personal integrity while dancing with and for others.
The movement of life is constantly re-creating, replenishing, and refreshing itself. All qualities inherent in water are present in our fluid bodies, from the slowest trickle to the crashing of waves. Balance, stretch, and extension while dancing are not goals in themselves; they reflect this flow of life force seeping, resting, or flooding through structure—as well as to others and place. Entering flow enhances our ability to inhabit new rhythms and new forms, responding, responsible.
STORIES
Dancing with Water
As a child living by the Atlantic Ocean in Florida, I was once pulled out and down by the undertow. It tumbled me against rock and sand, and then spat me out. The power was immense. I learned, forever, that water can kill you. Nature is not just pretty.
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Teaching in Bern, Switzerland, our dance host Malcolm Manning takes us to the river. “Walk upstream,” he instructs, “and jump in.” The calcium content is so high here that our fluid-filled bodies float, carried by the strong current. He reminds us to get to the edge and pull out before going over the dam. I feel a moment of panic, then ecstatic release as my body is swept along. Our group bobs and flows together—water inside, water outside.
Staying above Water
Indonesian dancer Suprapto Suryodarmo asks, “How to be under the water and see the horizon? A performer has to be aware of the horizon.”
Pools and Gods
The Yumban culture in Ecuador celebrated seasonal shifts with water. Visiting Tulipe, a pre-Incan archaeological site some 8,000 years old, we are shown seven pools. Stairs descend into each, and the last is in the shape of a jaguar. The expanse of the area faces a hillside contoured for seating. A guide suggests that the site was used by shamans in magical-religious ceremonies at equinoxes and solstices, with water as a purification element.
“There’s one more pool,” says the guide, “but you have to walk down along the river.” We take the hike, arriving at what would have been a water-filled circle, 1,000 feet in diameter surrounded by five tiers of stone seating. Lined with white sand carried all the way from the coast, at night the pool reflects the stars; constellations from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are visible.
A raised “runway” extends to the center of the pool, with a circular tip large enough for two people. At solstice, this axis lines up perfectly with the sun. Strings are visible where scientists are measuring the preciseness of angles; at the equator no shadow is cast at noon. Closing my eyes and moving, it’s easy to imagine music and dancing, the celebrants walking slowly down the center, surrounded by water.
Hally Sheely, hands with tadpole
Photograph © Caryn McHose
TO DO
Rolling and Pouring (Caryn McHose)
15 minutes
Sometimes you need to reestablish flow in the body.
Lying on the floor, eyes closed:
• Imagine yourself as a water balloon. Gently roll the balloon, by pouring the water—your contents—from inside. (Like an amoeba, the cytoplasm pours into the membrane, creating movement through a pseudopod.)
• Roll from the membrane—the container—allowing your skin to meet space and the ground.
• Roll imagining a fluid environment—your context—moving your body.
• Explore this with eyes open; notice when you are moving with awareness of container (skin), contents (fluid insides), or context (outside).
• Engage the theater of your imagination. Move freely, allowing the body to respond. What does your body feel like doing now?
After enhancing sensory impression with rolling and pouring, engage sensory expression: speak or write about your experience, “squeezing back the sponge.”
Spinal curves
Photograph © Alan Kimara Dixon
TO DO
Spherical Awareness—Three Body Weights (Caryn McHose)
15 minutes
Remembering the roundness of the three body weights (skull, ribs, and pelvis) releases tension.
Continue lying on the floor, eyes closed to enhance awareness of touch:
• Slowly roll the circumference of your skull on the floor. Take your time; the rolling of the skull moves your body. Sometimes it feels like a hard-boiled egg, slowly cracking and softening. Allow the sensation of touch to bring awareness of the globe of your skull. Roll to the top center of the skull; touch all the surfaces.
• Slowly roll the circumference of the ribs on the floor. Take your time, and allow the rolling of the ribs to move your body. Feel their dimensionality and resiliency. Explore the globe of your ribs.
• Slowly roll your pelvis on the floor. Take your time, allowing the bowl of your pelvis to be stimulated on all surfaces.
• Pause; then bring these three body weights into vertical alignment seated.
• Pour your weight up to standing.
• Fill your feet first, like pouring water into a glass; the head is last.
• Stand in vertical alignment, balancing the skull, ribs, and pelvis over the length of your feet. Feel the fluidity within vertical orientation.
• Move within an imaginary sphere of space, your kinesphere. Maintaining awareness of spherical movement, let the globes of your three body weights meet the spatial globe. Explore roundness in your movement. Feel the roundness inside, the roundness outside.
TO DANCE
Plumb-Line Falls
15 minutes
Shifting your weight through plumb line creates movement—toward relevé and balance, or into space. Staying fluid in this process invites spacious movement.
Standing, eyes closed:
• Tap the top of your head and imagine a weighted plumb line dropping down through the center of your body until it touches the ground between your feet.2 Continue down to the center of the Earth, where all plumb lines would meet.
• Now, grow your plumb line upward toward the ceiling or a favorite star.
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