Oh, I do like to dance. Why is it a discovery, over and over again? Oh, this is a part of me. Oh, this is nice. Oh, this IS ME, always will be. Maybe it's for that bittersweet joy coming back, returning, addressing my body again after a long, un-embodied absence.
So, I say to myself, "Self, keep moving. Build the desire to move. Don't rush. Teach your body over again how to work." Do exactly what you feel. No more, No less. But keep moving. Match it to your breath. And you're dancing. Again.
I'm back in the studio. Re-building a long-lost solo, "I'd be happy." It's been over two years since I've performed it. I've been asked by the extraordinary Erin Gottwald to perform in Brooklyn (Brooklyn, my love!) at the Spoke the Hub series, Gowanus Guest Room. I'm honored to be a part of it, and humbled by my struggle to get myself into soloist shape. I wish I had been working on something new to share, but at the same time, I'm also enjoying stepping into this old skin. I thought the piece had slipped through my pores and out the door. But it's in my body, deep in there somewhere, the product of many a lone hour in empty studios, rolling on the floor and uttering guttural animal sounds.
This morning in the studio (hotel basement) I feel older and slower (in a good way?). I'm telling myself to just let all of that gunk come through in the movement. This piece, unaccompanied by the forgiving curtain of a soundtrack depends on my ability to be in the moment, to connect to myself and the audience simultaneously. Every moment of the piece where I don't do that, it falls flat. So flat. I have to scream when I need to scream. Let go where I need to let go. And push my body through nausea-inducing whirlwinds.
And to get ready for action after my Delaware dancing hiatus, I have to be in the studio alone, working s-l-o-w-l-y.
Dancing alone is so...alone. It's the loneliest joy. The most joyful sense of loneliness. I forget how much I love to be alone in an empty room with a hardwood floor. Building the desire to move. Working steadily and acknowledging, honestly, exactly where my body is. Wishing desperately for company and at the same time feeling like I could be happy moving alone forever. It's a happy place because I'm alone, but then I wish I had someone in the studio to share that happiness. No I don't. yes I do.
Sounds like the onset of a group piece.
Through it all, the yoga helps momentously...it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Keep moving. My Delaware dancing hiatus hasn't been all hiatus. I've been teaching yoga all along (Look at me! All of a sudden, slowly, I'm a yoga teacher!), taught an adult dance class for a few months (an amazing, sacred sanctuary filled with brave dancing people), and have, of course, taught dance to kids. All that movement, plus some interesting and fearful aging, lives in there somewhere.
I hope I can allow it all to come out come showtime.
