My progress - the blog about Cedric Burnside and the transformation I underwent cannot be understated. In the past three days, the entire path of my dance came clear. Everything I have been thinking about - energy, body integration, etc. - it all came clear. I haven't put it all into practice yet, but many things I have. I danced with Brenda a few times in the past days, and I watched a familiar though rare look cross her face - it's the look she gives when her student starts to get it.
My sense of connection to my partner has completely changed. The connection is not something created, but something that arises between two grounded individuals. It's almost inexplicably simple, and I see now why it's so difficult to teach. It arises precisely because the dancers are grounded and using their bodies. In any other case, one or the other is forced to artificially create connection - this means using the strength in your arms or shoulders to follow and lead. Rather the connection should arise as naturally and instantly as if you were pulling in the sheet of a sail. Connection is a non-entity. By not creating it, it is created perfectly. The tension must leave the body for this to happen, and then suddenly, I am free to dance my own rhythms. Dancing is no longer (at worst) controlling my partner or (next worst) trying to simultaneously move and control my partner. Dancing with a partner becomes so simple.
Within the individual body, dance and movement must be seen as manipulation of energy within a closed circuit. Every movement directly relates to the ground. And every movement comes from the center. (But what is the relation of center to ground?) For this reason, the center must be emphasized. To fix my legs, my posture - everything - I must fix my center. It has become apparent that tension in my lower back is causing the issues of my body. I plan to begin practicing Franklin imagery designed to release that tension. But what is tension? How can imagery release it? The lines between body and mind are further blurred with this realization of my own energy. The land of dreams becomes that of reality and reality that of dreams.
Beyond partnership, I realized something else very important. In the past, I blogged about the phenomenon of race and jazz dance. I wondered whether race was indeed a determining factor to dancing these dances superlatively. I now know that it is not. It may be that certain people have it more in the blood, or cultural heritage. There may be plenty of things that causes some people to be more rhythmic than others, but I know now that it's simply a question of timing and technique - that is, that it is something I can learn. I felt all this in my body.
This is my first blog post that feels unnecessary to write. I write my blogs as much for myself as for anyone else. I am often working to clarify or contemplate what's happening in my life, but this entry is purely for my readers. Maybe I should write about it to try to find the language to describe it, it all seems to defy explanation, because I feel it in my bones. How do you describe the flavor of chicken?
Let me put it this way - we are all centers of energy, simultaneously individual and communal. Everything around us affects our way of being in clear and unclear ways. I will continue with a suspicion... To live well is to be grounded, simple, and efficient - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. There are many ways to move energy - the above categories seem to capture the ways. Love and hate are two ways to move energy, but what it is that makes "love conquer hate" is not some esoteric law. We need not rely on faith to understand why this is so. It arises from necessity, because love achieves a greater effect with less effort. The laws of the world are the same as that of efficient production - it's just economics.
To dance well is... (I can't answer this.) Somehow, the dance is vitally connected to the music. This seems manifest, but I mean this in the most fundamental way. That the exact same movement, done in the exact same way danced perfectly could not happen to two different songs (and probably not even the same song repeated)... the dance is something ethereal. Maybe this is what Merce Cunningham meant when he said dance has nothing to survive it. Acting seems similar in this way. All art is the manipulation of energy, and dance is the same. One day I want to understand all this, and I want to write a treatise.
