Un-Choreographed

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Delilah

By Delilah

The old fashion belly dance, the way I learned it, was not by choreography. It was live in a cabaret environment. The party atmosphere made things come up spontaneously that made choreography not very realistic. Sometimes the dance would stay on the stage and other times it was someone’s birthday and the dance moved around the room. Audience members made song requests and sometimes would sing low yearning poems into the microphones during my dance.  The audience loved when the dancer came out into the audience and interacted with them. Most of the parties and restaurants I danced in hosted families and little kids were encouraged to put tips in my waist band. Many performances were sacred sacraments of divine grace under a mirror ball and some, down right rowdy and profane, with Greek sailors showering dancers with hundreds of dollar bills. In the 70’s I danced for 45 minutes per show. There was not one hair on my head that wasn’t soaked in sweat. My stamina was incredible and I felt like a cosmic astronaut, rocketing into out of this world trance spaces. In tribal society the trance is a big part of the dance. Dance is a means of prayer from the beginning of time. The tarab is divine ecstasy the listener gets into as part of the experience of the music. The dancer is a vessel; a container of the human interface.

This unique experience is valuable and transfers something vital to our soul experience. Today’s technical world is sadly lacking, as we sit addicted to our physically passive computer screens.

You use what you know and you create your dance in the moment. You can do this effectively if you know 5 moves or 500 moves. To me, this wildness is an exceptional opportunity in dance that should be revered and held on high. Not that it negates choreography. It’s just that at this point in society we have many dances that are contained and choreographed and fewer options that are un choreographed and free. Improvisational dance holds essential skills that benefit our life experience in important ways.

Improvisational dance doesn’t mean you don’t study rhythms, music, learn moves, develop your skill set, practice combos, condition the body and work to increase flexibility and endurance. It doesn’t mean you don’t have an intended destination either. You just navigate differently. Your moves become your paints. When we as the audience watch an improvisational belly dance, we are witnessing the painter painting. The dancer shares the live creative process with you. She listens carefully to the music and opens her heart and soul to be like a tuning fork and resonate with the vibrations in the air, using time and space. With each breath she is inspired to unfold the next movement in time. The spirit provided the force behind the motion. We call this dynamics. We all are individuals and this is an opportunity for individuality to shine. The challenge is to be relaxed enough to allow the exhibitionist to step forward. There lies the hitch. We are told at an early age not to show off. Don’t indulge yourself. This comes from our old puritan roots. However all artists are indulging the stuff that makes up their lives. We call this expression. The “don’t touch your own body policy” is just a stupid lack of appreciation for the marvelous gift of life you have been given. So check to see if that’s in the back of your brain and get rid of it, if you want to really dance. Whether you are dancing for yourself or for an audience or both, you must be open and susceptible to your emotions. Available, vulnerable and shameless.

I often think about the stewardess directives to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before the child’s. This is because, if Mom doesn’t take care of herself first she won’t be any use to that child that is dependent on the adult. If we don’t invest in our internal life experience and take care of ourselves first, we will not have much to say. I can’t share any of my cookies with you if I haven’t baked any.  An authentic dance comes from an authentic life. I think this is one of the best kernels this dance has to offer all of us. It is the metaphor that life is one long dance from birth to death. To choreograph or to live in the moment is worth thought. Who choreographs your life? You, your mother, father, brother, husband, church . . .?

The fear of not having anything to say is what often drives us to want to dance to choreography. The fear that what we have to offer isn’t any good. The notion that yours is better than mine, so teach me your dance. So sad that our self esteem is so poor that we would rather do someone else’s dance; or that we could only have one idea and we keep using it over and over again in repetition. Some of us can dream up dances and have others implement them. I think the desire to save dances as original choreographies is a kin to video taping them. The memorization that goes into a paint by number dance is very left brained. The right brain synthesizes things. The left brain sequences things. The left brain judges (and leads to self criticisms) and the right brain is metaphoric and sees likeness. To make a choreography work it must move from analytical left brain to the right. Some humans are skilled at this, others can quickly synthesize intuitively. Often we have learned to feel more secure when things are organized and set. I say learned because children don’t mind disorganization. It’s adults that require order. The skill of being comfortable in chaos is a skill the universe supports just as much, if not more, than organization.

If you liked yourself and the picture you create with your beautiful box of crayons, you carry a sense of pride. We recognize a child’s sweet sense of accomplishment and pride about creating his/her picture.  That experience of drawing is full of lines, color, space, time, rhythm, design, breath and heart beats. We come away from these experiences liking ourselves and our lives (or well we should). I think to ignore, devalue, not see the merit of your own creative process is a contributing factor to all the depression and loneliness people feel these days. Pride coupled with compassion leads to strength and greatness. The lack of pride leads to not even finding compassion for one’s self.

Choreography teaches us about process and transition. It allows us to put our best trix forward in the shortest amount of time, I suppose. Since we are all so busy and there are so many of us now days, that a sound bite is all we have time for,it seems. However sound bites leave out plateaus and thresholds to new zones of physical and psychic trance expression only attained though longer durations of time. Real breath, real heart beats and body heat are necessary ingredients. This is where dance crosses over and can become prayer and this is what has some religious folks scared. I don’t know what they are so afraid of but I think it boils down to putting the clergy out of a job if people realized they can contact God all by themselves without the need of a church.

I tell my students when their shoulders are locked to think of something they love to do. The shoulders are about passion and our sensibility. I direct them to practice rolling their shoulders while eating a chocolate dove bar or relaxing in a hot tub. When you learn that that story is in those body parts the stories begin to unfold.

I often say to a new performer that if you step on stage you are accepting a responsibility to perform. A contract. The only way you let that responsibility down is by not understanding this and thus not accepting the rules of the contract by performing. Some dancers appear to have stepped on stage and left themselves at home. It’s really simple; tell me a story. In the case of dance, it’s with your body language that this story unfolds . There are millions of stories that can be told with the accompanying music. Our bodies can express more than spoken words. It is not linear. It’s multi-layered, way more complicated and yet we know it innately without having to study it. Rather you live it.

So what story do you need.. desire…? Do tell….