DISCLAIMER FOR THE NEW FOLKS! If you are just joining us now: It is never too late to join in with this experiment! If you’d like to have more art in your life just jump in the river midstream. You don’t have to have completed any of the prior sessions to be able to join us now. Plus the beauty of a year is that it is cyclical so there is always the option to double back at the end to any earlier topics you’d like to revisit. :-)
The hard stuff and the good stuff
Thank you for all the kind, supportive messages I got after my last post. It was good to take a bit of time to move through grief and focus on some of the practical baggage that inevitably accompanies this.
The hard stuff and the good stuff often sit side by side. And my time away hasn’t all been heavy - I’ve been getting prepped for some exciting, upcoming creative projects (I’m going to be hosting a cabaret and singing some Barlow & Smith songs at a cabaret at Crazy Coqs on Monday 26 May, and also teaching Sondheim at the Poetry School - now rescheduled to July…)
These are lovely things that have buoyed my spirits. But I have missed this experiment, and all of you, and it is nice to be back!
We are now in our new moon energy and today is International Dance Day - so it is time to DANCE!
Tuning into Intuition
For this moon cycle, we’re going to be exploring the duality of what arises from within ourselves (intuition) alongside the power of creating with others (collaboration).
The thing about intuition is - it cannot be premeditated. We cannot plan it out and execute it according to preconceived expectations. Intuition arises in the moment. It is impervious to the demands of logic or social acceptability. It is the thing within us that drives us / pulls us / calls us to pursue our own unique creative path.
Lots of artistic forms make use of improvisation, but there is something that feels particularly pure about exploring it within the discipline of dance. In dance, we are entrusted with engaging our whole bodies to create, and to allow for a kind of flow or abandon that is not achievable in the same way when working with tools, words, notes, or other materials.
All we have to express with is ourselves.
The thing about improvisation that I find so magical is that it gives us the opportunity to surprise even ourselves.
There are treasures buried within all of us, and one of the best ways to unlock them is to get into a state of flow and just see what happens.
Are you willing to be seen?
The biggest inspiration for this week’s creative reflections is an article called How To Dance Like Somebody’s Watching, that explores the power of being able to release our inhibitions.
Personally, I find this really, really challenging. More often than not, I find myself feeling awkward and uncoordinated.
Sometimes, it ends up in a situation where I am performing the role of a woman moving freely, rather than actually feeling the kind of release that comes from genuine lack of self-consciousness.
How do I look? I wonder. And in that moment, the magic is lost - because I start experiencing myself from the outside rather than remaining embodied in my own experience.
But this is a skill that can be built, and comfort zones can be stretched and massaged to enable more possibility and freedom.
For me, dance is the perfect lens to bring to the foreground the places where I fall into comparison, self-judgment, self-protection, and internalised expectations of what ‘appropriate’ appearance, behaviour, and movement looks like.
The thing is - beyond the walls of ‘appropriate’, there is so much more waiting to be discovered. And when we do unlock those moments where intuition is truly taking the lead, regardless of what anyone else thinks, it can feel almost like flying.
Creative Prompt: Unlocking movement
This creative prompt is designed to carry you through the next two weeks of art and life.
Your creative task:
Make stuff up! See if you can find a way to dance that is all your own - something you find through what feels good in your body, instead of copying a movement you have seen someone else do.
Your life prompt:
Can you let your body make the decisions for this fortnight? What happens if the head follows the intuition, rather than having logic lead the way?
Some ideas for embracing dance
Just a few more suggestions on unconventional places to find movement.
Close the blinds, turn up the music, and let loose dancing wildly around your bedroom
Choose one part of your body and let it lead the way (ex: elbows, left ear). Try to pay attention to a part you might otherwise ignore.
If you are in a public place where dancing normally would not be welcome (the post office, the bus stop), see how subtly you can dance so that you feel the movement, but no one else notices you are dancing (ex: tapping toes inside shoes, gently nodding your head)
Play with tempo - what happens if you stretch an everyday movement faster or slower than usual (ex: making coffee where each step becomes a luxurious stretch)
Watch a video of dancing with and without sound on. Can you let those mirror neurons fire and imagine yourself into the dancer’s experience? Is it easier with or without the sound?
This month our task is to look inward towards our intuition, so cultivating elements of dance in everyday life is probably more fruitful than breaking out a pair of pointe shoes (although of course that is welcome too!).
In this video…
This video introduces our music month, and then explores the qualities of voice and how it communicates our essential self.
This touches on:
Why this is the month I have been dreading the most!
Allowing ourselves to look foolish
Inspiration from the Harvard Professor who worked with Beyoncé
Dance as a process of being seen
Pursuing artistic abandon
Moving gently when stretching our comfort zones
My personal plans to make more space for dance in my life
For now,
Alli
Access Support: If you have access needs that I’m not currently meeting, please do drop me a line! (The best email is contact@ac-smith.com.) I’d really like to make this project available to anyone who wants to participate.
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