The Yin and Yang of Dance

Essinova Artful Life Saturday Playshops Summer 2020 —Session 8 in review

How the choreography of our time can use technology, separation, and mindbody wisdom wisely to bring people together and to connect with ourselves

By Katherine Relf-Cañas

The Essinova Artful Life series capped off its playful Saturday program on August 29th, with dance. A lot of milestone experiences that are essential rituals in life involve dancing because humans have been dancing for a long time — anywhere from 150,000 to 6 million years. We’re not alone in this. Even animals dance — whether to attract a mate or to bob and strut for fun.

My husband and I set up two orange yoga mats in our living room and were one of the couples who were not part of the virtual dance partnering. Anu and the facilitators used the Zoom ‘pin’ feature to pair partners across the Atlantic and in a few other time zones. We closed up social distance using technology to connect on multiple levels. Joe and I both found the playshop sweet, and agree that it is fun to indulge in being a little silly. Also, as Belinda Chlouber, participant and a playshop facilitator in the series, mentioned during the event, we need to MOVE MORE!

The series finale playshop was an invitation to dance with the Artful Life community, to dance with one another, and also to dance with ourselves. If silent disco comes to mind, think again. This was more about holistic practices and mind-body exploration than prom. Yet, dance can and does involve nuance: it is ritual, social engagement, and workout as well as a way to upgrade our neuro-muscular pathways for deep mindbody integration. The big takeaway: consider using dance and movement in your daily life just like other mindful arts activities presented in this series. Yes, try this at home!

The Yin and Yang of Dance Playshop introduced us first to three dancer-researcher-educators: Sarah Holmes, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Fides Matzdorf and Ramen Sen, both in Sheffield, England. All came to us virtually via Zoom. Sarah started us off on our yoga mats or chairs in an elemental integration movement of somatic experiencing. She brought up how this type of practice can relieve tension in the body. We did Xs with our arms above outstretched, and some of us rolled into a fetal position, a left/right side of the body and whole-brain stimulating series of dynamic and fluid poses. This warmup served to enhance our embodied cognitive awareness and to upgrade our neuro-muscular pathways.

Laptops on a nearby surface — separating and coming back to the group online was part of the dance — we alternated using the pin feature of Zoom to have two individuals dance with each other, then all of us rejoin our group. The music was upbeat and had that ‘makes you want to move’ quality that got us revved up. There were no steps to follow or dances to learn. Rather, the instruction was about tuning in to ourselves and one another. Oh, and we also danced with our pillows and stuffed animals, both of which were referred to as ‘fluffy friends.’ See ours below. We appreciated that Fides had a flair for whimsy. Overall, it was about bringing awareness to the experience and to the movement itself.

One of the useful takeaways was that moving in space in this purposeful way helps to loosen the entrancement with our thoughts. Overindulging in the intellectual hinders a more optimized body-mind state. Raising embodied awareness is good for bringing balance into that intellectual being that we are. Dance and movement help you “get into” the other regions of your body where, as science is showing more and more, other parts of our intelligence reside.

We also learned about leadership and followership. Fides and Ramen shared a set of exercises demonstrating how partner dancing can serve as a teaching tool in management and hierarchy in our relationships at work. It wasn’t all for fun and games. We discussed how so many of us are being deprived of touch. Whether we have acknowledged symptoms of anxiety, or are feeling vulnerable, we can all use a little remedy. Moving mindfully to music — or even in rhythm to the sounds of your housemate conducting sales calls — is one way to counteract dissonance and distress.

Throughout the playshop, we were cued to pause and reflect. In the parlance of the playshop, we were called on to take ‘a snapshot.’ After we moved to music and followed cues such as ‘be the leader’ or ‘be the follower’ or even ‘let your fluffy friend lead,’ we were asked to express on paper or other means what the movement was bringing up in us. We shared those feelings and insights. The group then uploaded the drawings or photographs (like the ones below) to Facebook so we could show others how we felt as we took on different roles in response to our facilitators’ instructions. These images give you snapshots of what we experienced, but you really had to be there to feel it yourself. That’s why I strongly suggest to you: do try this at home.

Eric Larsen, a master of dance that explores the mind, commented, “I ‘dance’ where dance, religion, prayer, storytelling, and daily life are not separate. Believing that artist storytellers have a critical role to play in response to the decline of civilization and the environment, I join with others in the playful, yet serious, making of stories, breathing life into the narratives that we live by.”

BeiBei shared, “The dancing with a partner in the playshop caught me by surprise; I was tearing up as Annette and I moved together. This kind of connection plays a pivotal role in growth and healing — on an individual level as well as in our communities at large.”

Sarah’s movement exercises invited us to ‘find the wonderful X space’ to ‘reach out into space and come back to ourselves,’ a lovely poetic notion. Among the insights she shared was to never underestimate the body’s power to heal itself.

Here are snippets of leadership wisdom from Fides and Ramen:

• A definition of a leader is someone who is currently in the role;
• No one is a leader for 24 hours straight;
• You can invite someone to dance but you can’t make them dance;
• Followers have power, and leaders may not take it into account when they wonder why the followers don’t go for their plans.

The experience evoked some lovely sentiment. It was also a workout for the mind as the facilitators and participants shared evocative, lyrical and profound feedback for the summer program overall. See Artful Life Saturday Playshops Summer 2020 — A Retrospective.