Sunday, September 16, 2007

EarthDance Miami 2007



I came to Miami for Earthdance 2007. The line up for Miami's earth celebration seemed a lot more extensive and exciting than DC and I thought I'd meet lots of people in this international city. I came with grand expectations of throngs of people in ecstatic praise dancing in trance, celebrating, healing, loving, living in the moment of endless dances. One should not have expectations, just openness to all experiences. And this is what I was learning to do as I danced in the open space vacated by a mostly seated audience at EARTHDANCE!


I walked in dancing. The music was good. The people of Little Haiti pleasant and beautiful as I walked from the car to the Area 57 Studio where Earthdance Miami was being held. While we communed to the good vibrations of South Florida's earth praising, 350 other cities in countries around the globe were having similar themed earth-raising programs--Brazil, South Africa, and on. (check out www.earthdance.org) Perhaps if I had read the fine print, I would have noticed the musical focus of the "Earthdance," which of course is why it all seemed weird to me that hardly no one at "Earthdance" was dancing!

My movement began fast and wild. Kicking up stagnant human energies with my feet. Throwing away the decay of egos with my fingers. Flinging my hips into the rusted pillars of excuses so many people internalize as to why they are not dancing, or can't dance, or will dance "later." Hello people, I scream with my body, is this not EARTHDANCE! What more can you be doing if not dancing to raise the energy of the Earth? To celebrate the multitude of blessings that we are still alive, despite pollution, trash, abuse of waterways...and the list goes on.


I continued to dance, at times shifting my focus to others isolated in pockets of seated people, who found themselves moving their bodies too. I play with a woman across the floor, mimicking her hips swaying. She laughs, and we switch back and forth sharing each others dances and never saying a word to each other. A man comes to me and says, "Hey, you're a REAL dancer!" I'm thinking, Are not WE ALL REAL DANCERS! Are we not all breathing together. The breath being the first dance, I find it hard to comprehend living, breathing people who tell me they "can't" dance. If it was so, you'd be dead by now. Nonetheless, I hug him and thank him for sharing his enthusiasm with me.

The cameras follow me all night. People protected by the darkness call out and whistle in approval of what they think is my "performance." I hug lots of people who come to me and tell me I am beautiful, that I dance wonderfully, that they can't wait to see me perform, that they love the way I move. I hear this all the time. I am not impressed. I want everyone to DANCE WITH ME! After all, I came with grand expectations that I'd be one of hundreds dancing, that'd I'd be swallowed up in the abyss of movement, dancing as one body of peace. Instead, or even more critical, I am initiating others into their movement today. I see today's movement blessings come from me encouraging the babies to walk before we can run in a relay race together.

Finally, before I leave (I chose not to stay until 4am because it just wasn't happening!), a Miami-based South African dance troupe takes the floor, calling us into a circle with drums and women dancing in festive traditional clothes. I am hollering from the circle. I am amazed at what I see in the crowd. People are actually still sitting in the presence of these ancestral rhythms! I can't believe it. I want to run out in front of the sitters and dance them up into action. Honor this indigenous sharing that has survived slavery, war, colonization, apartheid, racism, famine, poverty--this is HOLY MUSIC and DANCE, I want to proclaim. I yell louder. I don't even try to stop my elbows and legs from bumping seated people. Since this is Earthdance, I figure dancing people have the right of way at all times!

When the South African ensemble finishes their choreographed pieces, they invite us all into the circle to dance with them. I almost knock a woman over jumping into the circle. So many people leap into the anonymity of the circle dance. People too shy to dance alone, now find joy in the communal sharing of movement. I am happy to see the dance finally rocket into the feet of the masses. How boring to only dance with a few when we can always be dancing with the many. I don't know who I dance with. It is all a blur. I keep dancing until the drums stop. I know I bump into many people, hit many heads with flailing arms. My feet avoid getting trampled by others. I move like water around chaotic formations of rocks, always finding new paths to flow into when another is obstructed.



I am thankful for this sharing, for this lesson in always being grateful for the opportunities presented before me. I realize, again, that when I abandon my expectations of what I wish everyone else was doing, I leave lots of energy to dive into all that the divine dance is allowing me to experience. I am learning to be more patient, to accept the movement of others where they are. Nothing as natural and divine as a dance can ever be forced.

I danced atop a man-made floor, channeling my movement down into the core of the Earth below. Activating the open space by sending endless prayers for everyone to dance with me, to get up and love themselves with the dance as much as I do. And for about three wholly, ecstatic minutes, I got just that.

All photos from OSA 151, EarthDance Miami, Florida, Saturday, September 15, 2007, Area 57, after 6pm and on into the night!

1 comment:

  1. Binah,

    This is your cousin Robin from NJ. First I want you to know how proud I am to be your cousin. After reading many of your journal entries I find there are some powerful life lesson shared. I am just learning about the importance of protecting my energy and how we rob ourselves with thoughts of wanting others to be where we are.
    Keep up the good work!

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