The Magic of Controlled Chaos

Magic spaces appear everywhere when your mind's eyes are open.

Here is the 6th attempt at answering my own question in the dance writing bonanza. And if you're in Delaware and you're looking to see dance in March (some of it made by my own two feet), scroll all the way down to the University of Delaware Dance Concert information. 

Dance A's For My Own Damn Q's
VOLUME 6: CONTROLLED CHAOS
How do other aspects of your life filter into the way you experience dance?

I am a writer.
Dancing speaks to the writer in me, the storyteller who knows dream-logic is true. Dancing is real-time and dream-time blended. Movement tells me what I need to know and withholds what I don't. It's my timeline (movement moves forward in time and space) where I can revel in timelessness.

I am quiet.
When I dance, wordlessness is welcome. Allowing my thoughts and emotions to travel through my vocal chords and out into the world is, to put it mildly, difficult for me. It doesn't happen often in real time (i.e. during a conversation with fellow human beings). When someone asks "How do you feel?" I can legitimately say, "I don't know." Yes, I'm working on it. But in the meantime, dancing puts me in direct touch with emotion--letting it out, letting it in, letting it rage or fester or swoon or mope. Moving actually shakes everything up and helps me process, cope. Afterwards, I'm able to move on to the next moment, the next emotion. It's like going for a walk or a run when you need to make a decision, only I'm rolling around on the floor and hanging upside down.

But I am bossy. 
Dancing satiates and kick-starts my intense needs for both control and chaos. I can hold control and chaos in the same movement phrase. I walk a line between spontaneity and set action. I can loose control and steal it back again. I can be bossy and set things in motion and then enjoy what happens inevitably or unexpectedly. I like setting people in motion. I can feel both masterful and like an absolute beginner in the same breath. Dancing feeds my ego and then bats it down to the floor like a stinky dog toy. I identify as a dancer and always will. However, I'm moving off the dance floor and into the role of the old lady who sits in a chair and commands the action. I like that role. I think I was born to play it. As I get the heck out of the way, I take my own physicality out of the picture. I can play choreographer and director. The piece I am making right now has very little of my own innate movement in it and that's a good thing. The work can become it's own thing instead of a forced reflection of me. I'm giving it away, I'm trusting my dancers. And they step in and stun me with their brave choices and embodied commitment.

I am a teacher.
I like passing dance down. I like sharing it with total beginners. I love being a student's first introduction to physical freedom. It's eye-opening. It's bliss: "Here, look. This is who we can be in our bodies." It's magic to observe how the room becomes charged. We walk in at first afraid. A dusty floor. It's hot or cold or just right. We are in sweats and zippies and socks. We don't talk or just laugh, nervously. I take attendance. We stand up. We can't settle. We close our eyes. We are embarrassed. We breathe. We move. And then we are made new. Everyone is through the wormhole and into the gleaming everything. This is it. As silly as it sounds, it's a soul trek, an awakening, a "yes I am part of this world fully right now." When I see that dawn in the face of an eight-year-old or a college kid or a sixty-five-year-old curiosity seeker, I am whole.

I am along for the ride.
How do we start? How do we let people in (both the movers and the moved?). That space-clearing first action is so important and there are infinite ways to do it. A handshake. A sage cleanse. Eyes closed and breathing. Turing the lights out. Settling people down and down and in and in. The incomparable choreographer Tere O'Connor considers this moment a deep and profound shift in perspective. How do you create that crucial, initial transformation, that trust? He probably grinned as he told his dancers, "magic space, people." It's a simple vote of confidence, a waving of the wand, an "all aboard!"

I am always a student.
Leave the everyday. Embrace falling. Reach out. Trust the space. One step leads to another (oh yeah, I remember).


In Delaware? Check out my latest work...
University of Delaware Dance Concert, Perpetual Artistry  
Friday March 13th and Saturday March 14th @ 7:30 
Mitchell Hall (South College Ave and The Green)
Newark, DE
$10 adults / $5 students
Info:  Call 302.831.3311 or email kschroed@udel.edu