Last night was a long night. It was a night like you can only have in a major metropolitan center, full of dancing, art, and booze that goes into the wee hours of the night. Early in the night, I went to a performance with 8 dancers and 8 musicians. Names were drawn from a hat, one by one, and dancers would perform to whatever music was played. It was fascinating to watch - sometimes a little disturbing as well. Some of the performances were not what I would term "dance." I say that because some of them were antagonistic or full of self-loathing. Some were antagonistic towards the musicians. Much of this music was not traditional, and some of the dancers seemed to rail against what they were thrown into with their very soul. It was not until Etienne came to the stage that calm and peace reigned supreme. He was paired with a guy doing a sort of minimalist, mixed electronica. There were long pauses and moments of silence. Etienne filled these moments with his own movement and rhythms, but eventually came to a point where he was just waiting for the music to begin again. He knelt down next to the musician, and while watching so carefully, he mimicked all of the musicians movements with a tenderness that one can hardly understand in a jaded, post-modern society. Once the music began again, he was in his own element. The musician laid down a heavy drum line, and Etienne's African background was given room to shine. Pulsing, turning, balancing. His body turned into radiating muscles and dark skin. He leaped into the air, landing in silence. He balanced in arabesque. He let ripples flow through his body that would awe any hip hop dancer. He communed with the musician in a spirit of cooperation and respect that elevated both their arts.
I have been looking for a passage I came across in Eat, Pray, Love. If anyone has read the book and knows where it is, please let me know. the narrator is talking about the goal of any person being to tame the ego in order to get out of the way. It is to say that with all our fears, neuroses, and obsessions, we get in the way of the natural order. We slow everything and everybody down. We fixate on the "I," and in this we are limited and caught within our own perspective of what is possible. (Some of this is my own elaboration.) This is reminiscent of my little breakthrough with my arms and shoulders. When I dance with someone, I am often caught up in my own ideas of "leading" my partner. This means that I create my lead from my arms and shoulders, creating unnecessary tension within. Although this often feels like the only way to lead someone else, there is a much more powerful and clearer way to lead. In this I let my arms connect to the rhythm of my body, allowing for more freedom of expression in both partners. This tension is analogous to the dancers in the performance. It is only once we can sit quietly and calmly, at peace with ourselves, that we are able to express something greater than ourselves. Otherwise, we are only caught up in our own shit - expressing something indeed, albeit not necessarily something uplifting.
Tyger tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare He aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand, what dread feet!
What the hammer! What the chain!
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil! What dread grasp
Dare it's deadly terrors clasp?
And when the stars threw down their spears
And watered heav'n with their spears
Did He smile His work to see,
Did he who made the lamb make thee!
Tyger tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
