The Underbelly

Yes, I dance. Sometimes I dance less frequently than I want to. For whatever reason, I may feel blah, I may feel tired, I may feel funky. It's all real. There are times when I am not dancing at the vibrational frequency I believe fully activates the Love-Joy. It is in these moments that the reserve energy of all the dance I've done motivates me. It's like looking in the fridge for frozen stew when you don't feel like cooking or you didn't grow enough greens. You usually don't want the stew, but it's food, right? It's sustenance.

Such is the mood I've found myself in this October. Deeply introspective, in my head way too much, pondering the body movement, but nevertheless not moving my self. I'm confessing to you great world of humanity, fellow light beings, I have been dancing on a low vibration. Sometimes I judge this decision of mine, and others I think about what I have been able to do and feel and learn in this low frequency of movement. I call this phase "the underbelly," because it infuses my dance evolution just as much as the extroverted manifestations of my creative power.

This may shock a few, but it's true, sometimes I do sit still. Well, actually, I don't sit still, I fidgit, find other projects to start (like ressurrecting my sewing machine...yaaay!). In the meantime of my personal dance-meter's volume turning down, I still wind up sharing the movement with others--teaching and facilitating, etc. I wonder at this, you know? Like I share dance from the reserve-Binah sometimes. Is this okay? Should I only share the freshly prepared Binah, or can't humanity get something from thawed-out creative energy stored up for just this occassion?

These are the ponderings that come at times like when a friend of mine asks last-minute to co-lead a poetry and movement workshop with her at Howard University. I say sure and meet her there for the evening session. A group of about 20 students, mostly undergrad, are in quiet circles doing a quiet icebreaker. At the time I arrive, I am exhausted from bus and metro hopping all day, stuffed from so-so Jamaican (supposedly) vegetarian take-out, and clueless as to what the group is meeting about.

I decide to sit, and listen. It's the African Student Union and they're meeting as a part of a week-long series of events committed to raising awareness about the wars and human displacement in the Congo. Chi, my friend, begins talking them about five elements of hip-hop after the introductions, and then turns the group over to me. Hip-hop...hmmm, not my likely starting point but when they throw you the ball, you gotta run with it.

I gather the lot of students in a circle. This takes way too long. How much time it takes a group to make a circle often indicates the energy level I'm working with. Because I'm so tired, working on that reserve-Binah, I have to psyche myself out. I have to have enough energy for me and all 20 of us, whether they give it out or not. I have to dance from the position that we're all energetically activating space together, else I'd be too sleepy to dance with myself.

This "fake-out" is common. I would have added "unfortunately," but there are no unfortunate realities of the dance. Each frequency of movement from the breath to the levitated spin is welcome and sacred. Sometimes this is where we are, and we have to just be here. So anyway, pretending that there's more energy present than apparent is how I'm steadily awakening this group. We do a machine-sound-movement icebreaker that's fun and easy for anyone, whether you want to be dancing or not. We do some breathing, we play another game that gets us out of the circle and into the vast space of the room.

Afterwards, I grab my "magic scarf" from a big bag of thrift store goodies (I am so in love with recycled threads!). I tell them we'll take turns throwing the magic scarf to each other, and whoever has the scarf leads the dance. I play some Fela music and the leader rotates around the circle. Some make us dip side to side, others pull movement from the cannon of retro pop-culture, some use this chance to make us all do something big with our arms. All the flavors are different, and enjoyable in their own ways.

I make sure everyone has had a chance to be the leader. By then time is up for us, and we scatter back to our seats. I wander around looking for water because I have to share a piece for the open mic. I have no idea what I'm going to do. Usually the "it" comes upon me, and I'm ready to dance. I don't perform, I share. What am I sharing--that'll be born in the moment.

I decide to do "noise dance." Noise dance was born three years ago when my dear sister Samaa and I had to dance for a world peace gathering in Takoma Park. The "audience" (and I use that word loosely and only for quick familiarity) makes sounds; they are the paint. And the movers, the dancers in the space, are the canvas through on which the sounds inspire movement. Because the theme is about the Congo, I ask them all to make sounds drawn from their awareness and sensitivity around the things we know other people are experiencing in the Congo: the war, poverty, fighting, fear...whatever stimulation will bring forth the paint for my bodily canvas.

I invite them to make noise while I dance. Chi makes some noise with her mouth. A guy on the first row taps his feet and it's barely audible. The rest of the crowd is quiet, with big eyes and I keep dancing but I'm already running on "E", dancing with them from the Underbelly. I really need their energy, their noise. So I do something I never do--I stop dancing and call for "MORE NOISE PLEASE!" Out of breath for real, panting, and a lil' demanding, I implore them to really make noise, to scream, to put their heart in it, to imagine all the sounds you might be hearing were you in the Congo yourself.

Round two is much better. I swing my body through their sounds, catching his howl and their claps. In an instant we have ecstatic praise and pain all manifesting visually on my body. The energy raised, I move us into the next part of our dance. Now that we've raised the spirit of what's problematic in the Congo, let us use our collective energy to reimagine our world with more movement.

"Who has a word or an idea of something they think is needed to heal the situation in the Congo, and around the world for that matter," I ask. Silence at first, and then someone calls out "Understanding." Great! I think, I ask him to come forward. Chad is reluctant but his peers encourage him to come up, laughing at him because they think he's on "the spot."

I explain to everyone that we're going to make a movement sculpture for "understanding" and collectively energize the change we want to see in the world. I ask Chad to pose as "understanding." He clasps his hands in front of him, looking like a preacher whose frozen in space on the pulpit. I join his sculpture by touching his shoulder as I reach up and into the beyond. From my sculpture space I tell them all one by one to join in. Once hesitant students are now eager to fit in to our understanding movement prayer. Only a few people sit out, the MC takes pictures of us. I feel the excitement of the group; "what's next" they're wondering. I am relieved, this is it, I'm thinking.

"Without moving," I tell them, "look around and see what other parts of our sculpture look like. Now let's take a few breaths together to energize our vision of understanding." We do this and there's a stillness that descends on what was once restless. We all say "Understanding" together before taking a collective inhale and unwinding as we exhale.

Part of me wants to stay and dance more. They're all ready for the next thing. But of course, my physical body is eager to pass the torch to the next presenter because I am litterally spent. Dancing in the underbelly brings blessings all the same, I just have to be even more mindful of proper rest and nutrition, else I'll deplete the reserves before I build them back up.