losing yourself to find out what you're made of at the core of it all
We think dance is about remembering steps, performing with precision, showing them consciously, being in control of our bodies. But dancing, I discovered when I danced again, is about the opposite
In one of my favourite scenes from my all-time favourite movie, 'Before Sunrise', Ethan Hawk as Jesse, lying in a Viennese park, sort of drunk on wine and conversation with the beautiful stranger Celine, tells her about how he's loving watching the night turn into morning with her. Mainly because with her he feels like "somebody else".
"Seriously, think about this," he tries to convince her of this gratitude-love he has for her, "I have never been anywhere that I haven't been. I've never had a kiss when I wasn't one of the kissers. You know, I've never, um, gone to the movies, when I wasn't there in the audience. I've never been out bowling, if I wasn't there, making some stupid joke. That's why so many people hate themselves. Seriously. It’s just they are sick to death of being around themselves."
In a strange twist of art-meets-life, I had a Jesse-like epiphany myself lately. And my Celine, it seems, is dance.
This week, I danced after a hiatus of two months. It felt a little like what I imagine my son felt when he first started walking without tripping: elated, disbelieving, powerful, unstoppable.
It was a huge relief, mainly because the last two months had initially been about being distracted with too much pain in my right leg, and then discovering that the pain was from an injury I had been ignoring for a decade or so. The last three weeks had me totally disoriented, as my treatment ensured I was allowed to do everything I normally do in life, except dance.
As a dancer, I always thought my body was central to my identity, my work. My body is what you see when I dance - it is my tool, my raw material, my space of work with which I make emotions, meaning, and hopefully, the world make some sense. No wonder then, that dancers are hyper aware of their bodies, and everybody else's (as I have written about in a previous post): we gauge the bent of knees, the arch of backs, the angles of elbows, the nimbleness of fingers, the agility of muscles, the latitude of jumps and leaps. As a dancer I have been proud of my body, I have taken pleasure in being slightly obsessed with it.
But over the last few weeks of no dancing and intense therapy, I realised how dance is not all about the body. It is about forgetting the body. That's where its real power is.
Focussed on the spread of my injury, conscious of its pain, always reminded by its impairment as I walked, sat, travelled, did the humdrum activities, for the first time, I felt shackled in my body. I felt its presence all the time, just like Jesse felt with himself. Every emotion it made me feel, had no way out; it just swarmed in my mind, unable to gain release. I was always aware of my movement, my limbs, my personhood. It was a completely normal way to be, and yet I was a total stranger to it.
Over the weeks I realised that I wasn't healing, despite the treatment. It was because I had no Celine, no dancing, no way to escape myself. I also realised that my 18 years of Odissi have actually been 18 years of healing: a balm, a release, an immersion for every emotion I have felt too deeply or been bruised by. Ironically, the very dance that had caused an injury, had also been medicine.
We think dance is about remembering steps, performing with precision, showing them consciously, being in control of our bodies. But dancing, I discovered when I danced again, is about the opposite: it is the great and enormous release, beautiful and unearthly in nature, of forgetting your body. When you dance with your heart in it, surrendering to all the emotions you are tasting and letting out into thin air, for some time you can forget your body, and all the things it represents: your worldly identity, the social roles you inhabit, the years that have gone by, the tasks that lie ahead, the memories you have made, the meaning you must make of life.
This is a beautiful irony that can only be experienced, not explained: the magic of using your body so intensely that you spill beyond its boundaries. It is a beautiful forgetting and a wonderful discovery all at once. It is about losing yourself to find out what you're made of at the core of it all: music, melody, rhythm and space.
"No wonder then, that dancers are hyper aware of their bodies, and everybody else's (as I have written about in a previous post): we gauge the bent of knees, the arch of backs, the angles of elbows, the nimbleness of fingers, the agility of muscles, the latitude of jumps and leaps." & "This is a beautiful irony that can only be experienced, not explained: the magic of using your body so intensely that you spill beyond its boundaries. It is a beautiful forgetting and a wonderful discovery all at once. It is about losing yourself to find out what you're made of at the core of it all: music, melody, rhythm and space."
Swimming in these words. <3 I could feel for a second, what it would be to be a dancer who dances after a hiatus, rediscovering her limbs and air.