Holy Moly

My jaw is on the floor.  

The response from last week’s survey was amazing:

I received emails from Colorado, California, The Pacific Northwest, Minnesota, Montreal, New York City, Connecticut, and Tennessee.

Nice job dancing queens!

I have enough material from all of you to read and consider your thoughts on dancing for many months.

With intimacy and honesty, you shared hopes, fears, delights, and struggles in regards to living this dancing life.

Thank you for that.

The next few months of this newsletter will be dedicated to distilling and then exploding open the answers you provided by looking at how your responses play into the larger context of dance and creative expression, and how that connects you to your own body, to those around you, and to the larger world.

“Freedom”, “presence”, and “connection” were mentioned over and over again, so we are good:

The foundation for discovery has been set, and we are ready to fly.

As someone mentioned in class yesterday:

We are nothing but a “wild rumpus of bodies in space.”

When we listen closely enough to that rumpus, we are able to “hear what is going on inside” every single one of us, and to proceed accordingly.

I want to leave you with a Dance Mission that comes directly out of this survey:

What to do when there is no one around with whom to dance?

Being alone in a space dedicated to dancing, and expecting oneself to dance in an allotted amount of time, can be daunting for some of us.

I have avoided this situation myself because it can leave me feeling empty, flat, disconnected, and yucky. But if there is no one around who I can dance with, that means I won’t be dancing, and that doesn’t work either.

So try this:

1. Dedicate a time to dance this week.  I would suggest setting aside 20 minutes to do this. If 20 minutes feels way to long, go for 10 minutes.

If 20 minutes feels way to short, go for 30 or 40 minutes.

You do what works best for you.

2. Email me and let me know when you have set aside time to dance this week.

3. When your time to dance rolls around, begin by letting go of all expectations, or at the very least, have low expectations.

4.  Situate yourself in a manner that feels comfortable to you, and then simply be.  Notice if any desire to move arises within you.  Be prepared that there may be no desire for movement,  AT ALL.

Well, that’s interesting!

And totally okay.

5.  Wait, notice, and continue to keep your expectations low.

6.  If no movement arises, If the desire to move is nill. If you feel like you are going to fall asleep, you have a few options:

1) Let that be:

This is information for you, and it is important information.  Don’t override it with your own an agenda of what dancing is, or what dancing is "suppose" to be.  Listen to your body's desires and follow that.

If this means you will be in stillness for 20 minutes, this means you will be in stillness for 20 minutes.

This is the dance that needs to emerge in this moment in time.

Trust it.

2) If the above is excruciating and/or unacceptable to you, try this:

If there is no desire to move, begin by noticing all of the micro movements that are occurring all the time within your being.

Begin to accentuate and hone in on the detail, rhythm, and quality of these micro movements.

Play with repeating these movements.

Make them a bit bigger.

Try doing the same micro movement in a different part of your body.

Notice where this leads you.

Follow the detail.

Trust in the detail.

Let it take you where it will.

Bored?

So what.

Keep going.

Underneath boredom is that slowing down piece that most of us override, most of the time.

Wait, listen, notice detail, and go from there.

If you have the playlist I sent to you as a thank you for answering the survey questions, use that as a doorway into this dance, this dance that is already in the room, waiting for you step inside.

The first handful of songs are designed to help you drop in, drop down, and slow down.

Follow the detail…it won’t lead you astray.

Let me know how it goes, and share this newsletter, if you wish.

With Warmth and Jivey Vibes, Joanna of Joanna and The Agitators sweetly agitating/persistently upending www.joannandtheagitators.com