The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making

Day 3

Day 3: Flow • 13 Flow is our oceanic heritage. As we focus on the sensations of flow throughout the body, we recognize that it exists in varying degrees and can be diminished or enhanced through attention. Understanding the feeling of flow and maintaining connection with this internal sense of fluidity in our busy days takes practice. Our inner body and the Earth’s surface are both largely water, most of which is salty. Life-supporting oxygen enters the body as breath, and is pumped by the heart to every cell in the body through blood. The flow of breath as blood is an expression of the life force that begins, sustains, and ends life. Words in many languages attempt to describe this animating presence, including prana, chi, life force—and dance. How do we limit flow in dancing? Sometimes when we feel anxiety about beginning a project or making decisions, we contract or become fixated on preset, preformed views. But dancing and art making require fresh forms of being. When fixation limits expression, it can be useful to let go of form altogether and reconnect to flow. Attention to the fluid system of the body connects all the parts. Gently shaking the “blood side of the skin,” the insides, helps us feel the ripples and responsiveness of fluid, rather than rigidity.1 To enhance flow, imagine the body as a sphere—undifferentiated and full of fluid. Using the metaphor of a single cell suspended in the ocean, we can return to a place of all possibility in movement. The semipermeable cell membrane connects us to and also separates us from context (the environment), defining inner and outer. Skin is both touching and being touched. Each cell condenses and expands through cellular respiration, a metabolic process. Expressing itself equally in all directions, the cell has omnidirectional volume. We can be moved by content (inner fluids) and by context (outer ocean). Throughout, there is permeability and fluidity when we make choices. Dancing is an ongoing dialogue between flow and form: forming in flow and flowing in form. Rhythmic flow is a source for dance, an underlying current—not just the drum machine pulsing out the heartbeat to get us moving, but polyrhythmic pathways inherent in our body systems. Flow enhances our ability to move rhythm throughout our structure, and to feel it opening stuck places from inside. One’s internal, individual flow meets the external rhythms of music, other dancers, and the choreographer’s directions. The invitation is to maintain personal integrity while dancing with and for others. The movement of life is constantly re-creating, replenishing, and refreshing itself. All qualities inherent in water are present in our fluid Flow What We Can Count On We are basically fluid beings that have arrived on land. —Emilie Conrad, Continuum founder Day 3 Dancing with Water As a child living by the Atlantic Ocean in Florida, I was once pulled out and down by the undertow. It tumbled me against rock and sand, and then spat me out. The power was immense. I learned, forever , that water can kill you. Nature is not just pretty. ≈ Teaching in Bern, Switzerland, our dance host Malcolm Manning takes us to the river. “Walk upstream,” he instructs, “and jump in.” The calcium content is so high here that our fluid-filled bodies float, carried by the strong current. He reminds us to get to the edge and pull out before going over the dam. I feel a moment of panic, then ecstatic release as my body is swept along. Our group bobs and flows together—water inside, water outside. 14 • moving bodies, from the slowest trickle to the crashing of waves. Balance, stretch, and extension while dancing are not goals in themselves; they reflect this flow of life force seeping, resting, or flooding through structure—as well as to others and place. Entering flow enhances our ability to inhabit new rhythms and new forms, responding, responsible. TO DO Rolling and Pouring (Caryn McHose) 15 minutes Sometimes you need to reestablish flow in the body. Lying on the floor, eyes closed: • Imagine yourself as a water balloon. Gently roll the balloon, by pouring the water—your contents—from inside. (Like an amoeba, the cytoplasm pours into the membrane, creating movement through a pseudopod.) • Roll from the membrane—the container—allowing your skin to meet space and the ground. • Roll imagining a fluid environment—your context—moving your body. • Explore this with eyes open; notice when you are moving...