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	The dancers path	504 jours il y a
	The Dancer's Path by Paulette Rees-Denis 22 day ago The Dancer's Path by Paulette Rees-Denis Excerpted from Paulette Rees-Denis’s upcoming book Tribal Vision, A Celebration of Life Through Tribal Belly Dance, due out in June 2008. Copyright 2008 Paulette Rees-Denis paulette@gypsycaravan.us www.gypsycaravan.us ...A definition of a dancer may be one who can express herself with and through her body, is comfortable in her body, and can move through space with grace, strength, meaning, and determination. She has the nonverbal skills to convey stories, ideas, and rhythms. A dancer considers her artistic and cultural aesthetics as she plans how she moves. She can evaluate the significance of her dance and her place within the overall dance form. Dancing builds a strong body—a temple. Ultimately this temple is all we have. I preach sometimes to my students that if they want to take the dancer’s path, they must take care of their bodies—cross training through yoga, Pilates, and other fitness regiments. To use the body as a tool for expression is hard work that requires dedication. Of course the individual level of commitment depends entirely on how far we want to take the dance for ourselves. Often women can only take one dance class per week, and they live for that weekly fix. Some dancers come every day; they just want more dance. The thrill of the dance becomes an addiction that feeds our desire to feel healthy and beautiful, to bond with ourselves and each other, and to live in the moment. Most women dance for fun and immediate gratification as well as for the long-term effect of physically feeling good. The dance helps them to accept their bodies or to take steps to redefine them. Some physical effects of dancing are obvious, almost immediately. Starting on the inside, we learn how to breathe deeply, into our bellies, to fill ourselves up with our life-sustaining breath. Surprisingly, most people do not breathe deeply, but instead inhale only shallowly into the upper tip of the lungs. So in class we learn how to fill the belly with air and to synchronize our breath with our movements, inhaling on a certain motion, then exhaling on the next. It becomes about the transfer of energy, how we flow with our breath and how certain movements work better with the ins and outs of breathing. Breathing slowly takes learning to control the ins and outs of our breath, even holding the breath, and trusting that we will continue to breath. Taking the time to breath slowly helps to expel stale air from our lungs as we hollow them out, increasing the capacity for new oxygen and fresh air to be circulated. Breathing quickly builds aerobic capacity with our heart rate, quickly pumping fresh oxygen and its nutrients to our extremities, improving circulation and agility, as well as our thought processes. Both are important techniques to master, using breathe fully for the benefit of our mind and bodies. More visibly, we work on posture, alignment, and what parts of our bodies—muscles, tendons, joints—need stretching or strengthening. We practice how to stand tall and present ourselves to the world. I’ve learned how to walk through a crowd and keep my head up and my eyes open. I can acknowledge people with confidence and compassion as I pass—reinforcing my belief that in our society we should communicate with neighbors and strangers. A sense of pride can come from knowing ourselves and what we have accomplished because of learning to dance tribal style. It can be difficult to execute, memorize, and then improvise with the steps, solo or with another dancer. And it is cause for celebration on every level. … The power of tribal belly dance comes from the practice of improvisation. Improvising is problem solving at its finest. We learn to dance together, to watch and perceive each other, and to develop our own intuitive responses. One of us leads, and the rest follow, then we switch leaders. We begin to trust each other and, most importantly, ourselves, relying on our intuition and perceptions in the moment. It gives us good reason to believe in ourselves, sometimes for the first time. Dancing is hard work, but when we commit ourselves to anything challenging, the experience feels good and can be truly rewarding. The outcome is greater than you ever expect, just from a dance class! The attraction to this dance is simple, yet complicated. When I first started belly dancing in San Francisco, I did not have the knowledge about it that I do now. Back then, we were just dancing. But as the group evolved, the improvisational quality of the dance brought us closer. As we stared into each other’s eyes, we not only were using our peripheral vision to see what the rest of our partner’s body was doing, but we were looking deeper inside—even though we did not know it at the time. It was as if a bond was taking place—intimate, soul-reaching, connecting. While some of us find this intimacy initially uncomfortable, in the big picture of the world, isn’t that what we all want? To be seen and to know that we are worthy of consideration. It is important to be acknowledged for our roles in the world. It takes all of our personality types to make up the world. One person can be vivacious and raucous while another is quiet and shy, but we still take up the same amount of space. An adage says you have no personality until you speak out loud to someone. This seems so true—in life and in this dance—it is our way of expression, of communication, of creation. We are here to take up space, to be seen, to live, and it is important that we do it together, in support of each other, without competition. We are here to dance. Even when she’s not dancing, she’s dancing. She moves through time and space with grace and dignity. She is aware of her body and spirit. As the dance inhabits her, she listens to her body and intuition. She can dance along her life’s journey. She moves through her daily life in the body of a dancer.
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