Gabrielle Roth died last week. Founder of 5 Rhythms Dance she led the way for many to remember the power to meditate and heal through movement. As we approach Dios de los Muertos and All Saints Day lets dance on behalf of ancestors and those who died in 2012. What if death wasn’t morbid but part of the dance?
When I die, I don’t want to rest in peace
I want to dance in joy, I want to dance in the graveyards,
the graveyards and while I’m alive,
I don’t want to be alone mourning
the ones who came before
I want to dance with them some more,
let’s dance in the graveyards
Shake out one hand.
Shake out the other.
Shake out whatever you are sitting on.
One of the great strengths of those who improvise is our practice of following without hesitation. We learn that following is ecstatic leadership.
Who might you follow with body and heart today?
Matt got people to do his dance on a previous trip. I am very proud of him that he followed up by joining in some dances with friends around the world who know that their dances are a form of deep connective joy.
Raise a hand and dance in connection to those who dance around the world, whether or not we have been “trained.” All dancing changes the world.
Shake out the week.
Shake out one arm. Shake out the other arm. Shake out whatever you are sitting on.
When certain behaviors or substances get control of you don’t use instruments of interrogation. Use a black light!
Art, ritual, and performance rock as ways to honor the positive or negative shadows. Too good? That’s a shadow. Too controlling? That’s a shadow. Do you know when you rebel that your shadow is love?
We can’t eliminate shadows in life, at home, or in politics so we might as well Dance with them.
“Shadow Dance” from Dance– A Sacred Art by Cynthia Winton-Henry, page 90-96
1. Raise a hand and find your shadow. Notice its shades and shapes.
2. Follow your moving hand. As your hand rises, the shadow might get larger and more ethereal. As it comes down close to the surface of the floor, table, or wall, it may focus and darken
3. Play around, making weird shapes with your shadow. It’s not important to make them into something, unless you can’t resist doing so. 4. Dancing with your shadow, notice your shadow as a faithful accomplice and yet not exactly you.
“Casting a shadow is physically unavoidable. Yet when it comes to our “emotional or moral shadows”—anything deemed opposite of our lighter, loving selves; anything too emotional, weird, or dangerous—we do everything in our power to hide them. Those who value love and joy are often shocked by their feelings of hate, doubt, or rage.
What are some things you’re not supposed to do? Turn a few of these behaviors into ten-second spiritual “No-No! dances. The Divine knows and accepts you any way you are, so why not give a few of these a try?
Something you Shouldn’t Be or Do?
No-No! Dances
1.“You should be peaceful.” Do a ten-second ranting dance. Stomp around. Punch the air.
2. “You should be prim and proper.” Dance for ten seconds with your butt sticking out.
3. “You should be demure!” Dance sassy, hands on your hips or thrusting your pelvis.
Some people go big with all this. Check out this “drama!”
Others just put shadow toys on their altar. I do.
For more on Shadow Dancing email me at cynthia@interplay.org and I’ll send a pdf. on Shadow Dancing.
Share in the comments how you play with your shadow.
In the meantime, Taking a deep breath. Letting it out with a sigh,
This is one of the InterPlay slogans. It means that our bodies hold on “tight” to things. Fortunately, we can shake it out! Even “people of the chairs” can let energy move and let spirit flow. We can amuse and be amused. Ellen DeGeneres agrees. She invited Aunt Carol to come on her show after this youtube went viral. Aunt Carol is an InterPlayer “in her heart.” I’m sure.
Are you an InterPlayers with youtube savvy? Join an InterPlay campaign and create a chair dance of your own! Hey, if they get watched these would count as connections! I’ll try to post some 30 second chair dances while in Australia. That’s where I am headed today!
Here’s some music. Do you own improvisational chair dance now. Remember, you can shake out whatever you are sitting on!
Lucky us. No matter what, artists thrive! Even when we must disassemble our work, body politic, a pattern or our life!
We can play with it! This is an InterPlay secret!
Deconstruction can be fun!
Disintegration is integrating.
Two do not need to become one.
In discerning, some disassembly is required.
Let it dance!
If you need to make a decision between two choices, it can be helpful to do a dance using your two hands. Put one choice in one hand and the other choice in the other hand, and do a dance of decision making. This dance can also be done with a partner, or you could watch two people dancing hand to hand. Dance of Decision Making • Press your palms together, then pull them apart. Recognize that push and pull are part of decision making. • Now, let your two hands flow and come together in random connections. Make different shapes as they connect. • Bring your hands back together, palm to palm. Notice the feeling of this simple connection. • Begin to open the space between your palms, letting them move apart. • Drop your hands, then bring them together again. • Imagine one hand holding one choice and the other holding the other choice. • Release your focus or worry about the decision. • With music or in silence, let the dance evolve any way it wants to. Select a piece of music from Phil Porter’s website. musicplayer.htm
• When you are done, take time to write, or simply take notice of your body wisdom, returning to the choices you held in each hand. What do you notice about the relationship of these two choices? Do you feel moved toward one or the other? Has any wisdom offered itself?
If you like, please share it here.
Take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. Shake it all out.
Even in this moment we assemble. Raise a hand in connection to friends far and wide.
Take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. In our world, that’s a bold move.
People today are getting bolder by:
–dancin’ down grocery stores aisles! (Thanks Levity Project!)
–occupyin’ public space in complex, messy, creative wholeness to stand up for human needs, inventing group hand signals like “irrelevant elephant,”to signal a speaker on a mic when he/she is off topic, and human mic, using call and response to tell a big crowd key news.
–infiltrating spiritual care as patients learn the power of prayer in a hand dance and mental health experts watch struggling folk find joy by encouraging them to move, sing, speak in made up languages, and shake it out. …Bolder yet? A government diversity officer proposed InterPlay to her city as a wellness strategy.
Harriet Platts, InterPlay leader in Seattle invented the boldness report to claim the wonder of fearless play, the fast track to well being.
Ready to embolden your own public display of body wisdom?
Practice Flaps Up! Flaps Down!
Flaps Up! Lift your arms up in the air. Reach up with heart and soul into space, the big All!
Flaps Down! Gather that openness back into yourself, bringing your arms down easy at your side. Savor inner spaciousness.
Lift your Flaps to get out of yourself, connect to something bigger. It feels good to exercise your wings. Give your boldness a nudge! Some chronically melancholy folk consistently counteract the blues with this move!
Flaps Up! Stretch into heaven! Flaps down, bring spaciousness into your little body.
To the music of InterPlayer Soyinka Rahim raise a hand to connect with others, dancing on behalf of a million bold, life-giving connections.
Embodied following and leading create mutuality, joy, deeper connection. Following gets wider movements to happen. How is your follow through?
Wing It’s Susan Main, Coke Nakamoto, Nadia Thalji, Suz Strasberger interplay with following and leading.
Following our hearts desire can be counter intuitive, yet it’s how guys like Steve Jobs create jobs. (Thank you Steve!) Stay curious. Stay foolish! Keep going. Play!
Jeff Breting (Minnesota) deepened and upped his playfulness during a season of unemployment by immersing himself in InterPlay’s Life Practice Program for a second time. He wrote,
After 8 months of being unemployed I’ll be spending this momentous occasion by starting a new engineering job.
Since the beginning of this year, my journey has put me in touch with well over 400 new people in my life, which is a large number for an introvert.
Leading and following is an InterPlay form that has helped me navigate through these many hundreds of conversations. In my body, it feels good to lead and to be followed, it feels good to be led and to follow, and it feels good to not know who’s leading and who’s following…
Since it feels good to both lead and follow, I’ve been following my body wisdom by seeking out relationships where conversation is filled with an adequate level of shared leadership time. While I was staying at the Berkeley Hostel (Piedmont House), I shared the Leading & Following form with a housemate, and her eyes lit up as we moved our hands in shared leadership. In its pure InterPlay context, the leading and following form pretty much always causes sparks of joy.
When applied to conversations, the leading and following imagery has helped me to better navigate a wide variety of conversations with many different people.
As I follow my body wisdom by nurturing relationships where I can lead, follow, and share leadership, I am increasingly filled with the joy that comes with satisfying relationships.
There are 5 movements in healthy interaction. We practice them when we improvise.
Are you leading?
Are you following?
Are you finding the magical blend?
Are you letting go?
Are you reconnecting?
What do you want more of today? Even dancing alone you do all five: Initiate, follow through, lose yourself, change, follow to the next place.
Take a minute to follow into a dance or rest with Roy Todd’s composition, “Pure Delight.”
The Swing center of motion is in your belly. Place a finger in your belly button. Get your finger moving, letting hips and belly circle or sway. Cultural dances that pray through swing include
Swing stirs the gold in your belly and raises joy! When you raise joy you raise it for others as well! That’s a prayer that requires no further thought. Anyone can do it. To raise joy swing to this.
Swing is fundamentally relational, this side and that. Rock. Swing. Bounce. Spin. Swirl. Spiral. Boogie! The center of it all is the Center Around Which We Swing. In InterPlay we make space for our rocking, swinging, colorful selves to connect. “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that Swing!” Fling some love to the Next Gen: Arts and Social Change Group meeting at InterPlayce. .
Swing a partner when you get a chance! Have a good weekend!
Posted by cynthia winton-henry 
