S.E. India

She was maybe two feet tall, and all manners of independent. She spoke with an intensity comparable to preachers, leaders, mothers. She looked me in the eye when she asked me to move my things out of her way, so that she could sit and color. She pointed to the man in the corner who was not dancing, because she insisted I had "forgotten" him. She made me laugh and pay her serious attention all at the same time. I think they say I was kind of like that as a child. She reminded me in a beautiful way why I love dancing with children and why I'm so excited to have my own one day.

India, maybe four, maybe three years old. I didn't get a chane to ask her. She was one of several amazing children who came to bless my class at the family festival day in Southeast, DC yesterday. The festival was sponsored by the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative, an organization committed to providing resources to families in Ward 8. Ward 8 is the nation's capital's last frontier. The dumping ground for less desirable things. The only part of the city where there are more carry-outs, liquor stores and churches all on the same block. The is also the place where I spent about 60% of my childhood (when I wasn't at my magnet schools and church across town). Of course, with gentrification and Obama, condos and dog-walkers are on the rise even here, because it is still technically Washington, DC. But S.E. is Southeast.

I was very excited to be asked to do a dance workshop for the children at this rare, but extremely necessary, S.E. community event. I am usually working across town where there's more money, better transportation, and healthier food options. I grew up in S.E. and wish I could do more with youth here, so I jump at opportunities (read: paid gigs) to do so.

The room was sunny and full of space. After a few minutes, three children walked in, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, all talking to me at once. "Can I tell you something about myself?" Edward asked. He dominated the introductions as he informed he intended to become a scientist. Wonderful, I thought, this group is lively!

We created a cicle to warm-up. With energetic little ones, all ranging from 3 to 8 years old, we make noise early. The movement is a lot easier to introduce if you can yell, and giggle and scream through it. We played the animal game next. Edward, the beaver, wanted to teach us about beavers instead of dancing the beaver. Sharon, one of the teachers, invited us to be kangaroos. Chanelle, a 6 year-old very enthusiastic about going to the first grade next year, roared us into lions. George, a quiet boy who informed us he'd been to Jupiter, was a sly tiger that flexed its teeth. I let us swim around and become fish.

We played more games, visited the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn's rings all while traveling via rocet ships executed with loud, explosive leaps from the floor. We shared our names as movements and did the scoot-race, where you have to move forward on your bottom without using your hands.

This was a fun, successful workshop, and the children danced for 45 minutes before the crayons called out to them. I was pleased; this age group's attention span is usually about 30 minutes! Anyway, I hope you're inspired to dance with some youth, think outside the box and have fun! There's so many children waiting on you to play with them, to remind them that they can dream big and enjoy life.

The Youth!

Our biggest miracle. Our opportunity as humanity to become more than we have known our lives to be thus far. The future. This is what I feel when I see a young person. And by young I mean someone who is young enough to not have the freedoms to make completely independent choices. Someone who still depends on mommy or daddy or auntie or sister or grandma or teacher to direct them toward the best options. So when I see a young person, sometimes a child, sometimes an adolescent or older teenager, I see the potential of great things cascading before me. And lucky me, I get to share a dance with him or her, to widen that lens of possibility, that awareness of how and what one might imagine the world to be.

Today I bring a DVD of me dancing OSA for my middle school students. We are four today, confined to a little room with no windows, intrusive desks, and a rough carpet. Today, this is where I am supposed to create the “Dance Playground,” and as I work hard to move past my frustration that the principal of this newly renovated building refuses to allow us to use the brand new dance studio—for the DANCE class--I wonder at the sensation Jesus might have felt having to turn water into wine.

Michael informs me that I have sweat stains under my arm. Adrienne takes her boots off and on, and then off again and then hides under the table. Ana ducks out of the room and down the hall and into the girls’ bathroom for 15 minutes. I play some music so we can stretch, “we” meaning whoever’s attention I have for more than 30 seconds. Michael tells me that I now have two sweat stains and that he has deodorant. They all laugh at me; finally I think, “a united class.”

There are so many intersecting factors contributing to why I've been placed in this very un-ideal location to facilitate dance. I could let my thoughts meander through all the issues plaguing this well-funded, poorly managed after school initiative, but my time is limited with these beautiful students and I always want to them to experience my best "me." Besides, pointing any fingers would delay you, my dear reader, from answering the urgent question of personal responsibility that sparked this essay: What can I do to enhance access for young people to safe spaces in which they can explore their creativity? This is all our responsibility, and overemphasis on "accountability" and "outcomes"--without acknowledging the societal dismissal of holistic youth enrichment programs and the relegation of "the arts" as the neglected step-child of the education system-delays us all from articulating our own responsibility. I could go on, obviously!

My goal has never been numbers. Even though headquarters stressed at the orientation that if we couldn’t show regular attendance our programs might be cut or revamped—I really don’t care. Add to this supposed stipulation that the space I’m in is too small to safely accommodate more than three children, and again I’ll say--in the interest of providing the best experience for my students--I am not preoccupied with expectations from the central office at this point. I am admittedly much more interested in the quality of experience for each child and not how many children I can work with at once. It’s extremely rewarding for me spend an hour with one child, if that’s what the day brings. Especially since most of the young people I’m working with at this school seem to move to their own drum. Those kids not in any clique and not extremely popular and those who don’t get a lot of attention anywhere else. So if my two, maybe three, hours with them a week satiates that very important need for attention that we never outgrow—then I am more than happy to provide it.

Anyway, these three brave youth have come to experience the “Dance Playground” and are not at any fault. They are just children, bored from sitting all day and hungry for lots of sugar candy and a new experience. I am opposed to the candy, but if I want to keep them in the room, I have to make some concessions.

I celebrate every seemingly ordinary movement that my students invent. Adrienne makes the snow with silent, waving arms. Michael falls to his knees swooshing back and forth over the carpet to be the beach’s waves at sunset. Ana opens her arms wide and sings a high-pitched chant to be the sun. I hop with flying arms to be the wind. Together we all dance each other’s favorite element of nature. No, I have not explained the “point” of this exercise. In fact as I was instructing them to think of something for their nature element, I did not even know where I was “going” with this. I knew I needed us to sit in a circle for a minute. I needed everyone to listen to me and to each other in turn. And from this spontaneous stab at order came the dance of snow-beach-sun-wind.

(me doing the movements my students created)

After we build the dance, I record them with my digital camera. Then we watch all the clips together. They love seeing themselves dancing and they hover over my shoulders anticipating the images of their captured creativity. They do not laugh or tease each other, rather they respectfully wait to see each other’s solo clip and smile gleefully. It’s a rare moment of peace and community for children who have been cutting each other with mean words, pulling hair and swinging fists, occasionally.

Finally, I show them the OSA video and ask them what they thought about it. Ana says she liked me dancing in the subway station because all the people were looking at me. She said she’d be too shy to dance outside. Michael says he thinks the ending was bad and that I should have let the tambourine lady from New Orleans have the spotlight. No matter their opinions, it’s important to me that I show them examples of me being courageous with my art, suspending my ego in city streets and grocery stores--yes, even if people think I'm crazy--doing things outside of the box. I want them to know that when you love what you're doing with your life, you don't care about other people's opinions. And as their “teacher,” I want them to SEE me doing everything I’m asking them to do.

When I say goodbye to them, I ask them will they come back next Tuesday. Michael says “sure!” Ana shrugs and rushes to join Michael in the never-ending scavenger hunt for food. I pack up my CDs and put my shoes back on, contemplating all I would do differently if I had my own school and could rewrite the priorities of educational policies. I thought how I would write an amendment to somebody’s constitution called “Standards of Excellence in Dance and Movement Education” or something like that and have it ratified and signed and whatevered by other dance and movement educators.

The first article: “Let There Be SPACE!” And I would have detailed information for how to ensure adequate space for each child, and what is good space and what is not enough space. I would gather support from all parents, teachers, students, administrators and stress the critical movement we all must make. On one hand it really baffles me how ignorant the policy makers are on the importance of space, but then again, these are the same administrators who don't incorporate any movement into their own lives--why would they treat it as a priority for the youth? If you raise a child in a cage, then as she grows up she’ll never dream bigger than that confined space. That’s not something I’m willing to let sit on my consciousness, and so I’m going to make a big noise about the absolute importance of access to large, safe spaces for our youth to explore their creativity-WHO'S WITH ME?

my new year's dance resolution

you know my goal in life is to dance with as many people on the planet as possible. i am recommitting myself to that this new year. i had fun dancing amidst the tourists passerby and attempting to take pictures of myself at the hirshhorn sculpture garden on the 5th day of kwanzaa, "nia" which means purpose. these clips are a bit of my experience. happy new year! let this be the year you let your dance live!

fly girl

sometimes when i dance
i feel like i'm flying
like if i take another leap
i'll defy gravity one more time
bite off a bit of cloud
leave my swirling trail of joy
in the sky and stir up a nebula
making new stars
with my finger tips
threading new paths across the globe
connecting hearts
one smile at a time
that light under my feet
feeds the movement
i spin i dive i thrive
on pleasure pools
and too the lessons along the way
we journeying we crying
we growing we loving
we dancing all the while
i do believe
that a dancing body
is the living body

what is it this time? i don't know myself. I find it amazing the number things i could talk to you about. is it about dance? is it about christmas or kwanzaa or love or lovers or dreams? is it about anything relevant to your life. if i had to pull something off the top of my head it would be about this: movement.

what about movement today? nevermind the dc movement scene, let's journey back to india nearly 3 years ago when i found myself amidst a crowd of beautifully rowdy men who challenged themselves and each other one by one to dance with me. i danced for some long period of time, without adequate water and i thought i might pass out right there on the dirt road in the middle of bangalore, but i kept on. and finally, just when even spirit had had enough of me, i said to myself "ok, last one." and he came. younger than all the other men, with a fiery, spastic dance that was akin to a fire cracker going off in a contained space. he bobbled his head. he did back flips across the circle. he loomed into my face with his own face and we synced some kinda way until there was no time and no space--just us. he could have kept going for another hour i'm sure, but i had used up the little reserve of water and my partner thought it best we find food and hydration fast. so i broke the circle, even though i wanted to stay dancing. but the people weren't done with me yet. they followed me in a procession. some grabbed my hands, some bowed. i said give thanks to them all. yeah, i felt for a moment like the guru, and i am, but in that moment i was new to my powers.

but what is also so pivotal about that moment was that it's when i realized my life mission: i want to dance with as many people on the planet as possible. plain and simple, and without any limitations or parameters. i feel that each moment, each interaction with another human being is an infinite portal of creative exchange. i believe any dance you do with me is unique and beautiful and that's all that matters, really, is what we do together now. my life is one of constant communion with the omnisacredness of life. come dance with me...the more the dance, the more the life!

(photo is binah @ the gulf coast of mexico, somewhere in louisianna, july 2006)

Love Dance

sometimes if you move for love, it makes the dance bigger. i mean, like dancing because of love, whether for yourself or for someone else, dancing for love only generates more love. i experimented with this love dance last nite. some really beautiful afro-peruvian music was on the ipod and i made out like i was a whole other person from some other country. not like i really ever claim america as an identity anyway...but for this new dance i was consciously someone Else. Else was like a flower blooming in the light of the full moon, undisturbed by crickets or branches i couldn't see underfoot. i was Else, and she didn't care about a thing except being inside the music. the voices in the music floated in and around my body. causing me to sway and rock. my hips plunged into the peripheries of my known parameters, pushing the limits of space, making the boundaries seem unimportant. it was not a dance of might, but one of curiosity. how many ways could i switch my hips, how long could i hold my balance with one foot in my hand and the other spinning on the ball of the foot.

the lighting was low and the shadows loomed on the walls. i caught myself, delicate as she was, a dense cut-out of darkness mirroring me and expanding my body to the ceiling. what if i was really that tall, i wondered, where then would my shadow go? i followed the line of my body on the wall, seeing where it rippled with the percussion in the music. my shadow, unlike me, was unstoppable. She leaped over the door knob, the molding of the door, the dresser, and even spilled onto the carpet without interfering with the dance.

i spun around a lot, finding something extremely invigorating about the wind of my lapa enhancing my momentum. Spinning is one of my favorite things to do, seeing fixed things become mobile makes the world more bearable. a new friend of mine, who first saw me dancing OSA in Chinatown a few months ago, admitted reluctantly that he thought i might be "a lil crazy". i laughed and told him no worries, in fact, i told him that i think everyone else is crazy for not dancing. he asked why, and i told him, that movement makes sense to me because the earth, the planets, the galaxies are all moving, even the sun erupts. all of nature moves, the clouds rain, the ocean waves the flowers blossom. Everything in nature moves, that's why we have this phenomenon called Life. Life, as it happens, depends on movement. humans, like us, are no less connected to all these other life forces, and as such--we must move too! the more we move, the more we cleanse, the more we heal, the happier we are.

i told him that to me, it's crazy to see masses of other living beings not dancing, or rather, moving through life with such low frequencies of movement. within all of us is an infinite range of motion, and we need each frequency for life. imagine if the ocean only expressed herself in low tide. this mono-frequency of ocean movement would mean we wouldn't benefit from high tide. can you imagine how this would effect fisherpeople, surfers, boaters? everyone depends on the ocean to express multiple frequencies of movement.

so too does the earth, does the whole world's constant vibration depend on the positive, diverse, expanding frequencies of its inhabitants. the next time you find yourself in your body, ponder this: how much movement have i contributed to this life, to this world?

(hint: there's no such thing as "too much" movement!)

ECSTATIC PRAISE!

Go forth my beloved humans! Dance until your sweat showers you, laugh until your belly aches, and move every part in your body as if each discovery of a new muscle is a life-altering, epiphany from God! Journey deep into the crevices of your very life and express the movement that comes from there. Those delicate, subtle, but all the while essential moments that piece together the critical beat of the heart, the persevering pulse of the blood. Move with these forces and discover a new part of yourself, for with each moment is a brand new life. This energy, this dynamic and inevitable energy is how we all give birth to ourselves every moment of our lives. This is why the dance is so vital to exploring and expressing ones most intimate awakenings, even if it is only for the Self to experience.

No one can do your dance but you! That's why it's YOURS! This dance, this movement is so amazing, so fresh, so infinite, and soooo YOURS! I cannot do your dance. Your mama cannot do your dance. Only you can do your dance. People can teach how to perfect other people's dances, but the movement that comes from your body is all yours. Claim it as such. Love it! Celebrate it! You are the dance you want to experience in this world! Never doubt that the movement coming out of your miraculous body is valid, is important, is beautiful, is powerful. Imagine how much we could do for our world if everyone believed in his or her dance?

Place your hand over your heart, feel the vibration of your own body sending healing energy into the earth or the air around you. Fall in love with your dancing Self. Know what it is to be elated with your own body. This love is unconditional, it doesn't matter the size of your jeans or the alternate rhythm of your feet--whatever you do you do! you don't like how you look, close your eyes! you don't like how the clothes fit when you dance--take them off! Whatever your blockage, whatever your excuse, release it, the movement is moving!

Dance Guru

I've been called many things, and I am always brainstorming new names for my art, for my works, for myself. I am always unimpressed with the usual names like "founder," or "director." Instead I wanna be "Host of the Galaxy" or "Dance Magician"...but then I worry if I'd be expected to do magic tricks. Some people really think I am doing magic with my body, unknowable feats and rhythmic journeys of spine and pelvis. I, of course, am "just dancing." Sometimes I write the thoughts down that come to me in between the movements. Deep philosophical ponderings that one might expand on over tea or something with other scholars...you get the picture!

Today's thoughts came after I took myself to a new OSA spot, the Freer Gallery of Art on the Mall. I'd never been there before and it was rainy, cold, and I was under dressed, as usual (I don't like clothes or shoes!) The place was quiet with dim lights. I wandered around looking at all the "art" pilfered from indigenous peoples all over the world until I found a big enough room to dream, dance, and write.

There is something refreshing about light.
It opens up a space, gives the illusion of more space.
Space is like the breath, the more the better.
Big vast luminous space is illuminated by light.
Big windows let lots of sunshine inside.
Bigness Vastness Expansion
Love expands like light.
The heart grows bigger with compassion.
What is forgiveness?
Is it like opening the shutters or the blinds
in a place that's been in darkness too long?
What is acceptance?
Is it like embracing the shadows
that loom even in the abundance of light?
So much light. So much space.
Why be cramped up anywhere, ever?

Shoes feel like shackles
to me
confining constricting
prohibiting movement

Happy feet love being free
to dance wherever
they want to be!

I am spatially oriented. When I feel there's lots of space. I feel good. I feel like dancing, like spinning, like imagining new things. Today, I surrounded myself with lots of art and space. First stop before the Freer Gallery was the National Museum of African Art. It's one of my top five OSA spots in Washington, DC. I stared at the same art for nearly two hours, noticing all it's nuances. I didn't even look at the name or artist info because I didn't want to be biased. Every now and then, I would stretch my back and my arms. In the process of doing that a grand idea came for me for a movement presentation I have to make to some middle schoolers next week. But anyway...these are more of my raw genius rantings:

Sometimes if you stare at something long enough, you will begin to see it. Really. It's depth, its texture, its luminosity. You will see where it curves and where it also bends and varies. You will see its patterns and symmetry, embedded even in the folds of asymmetry. When you stare long enough you will see what is flat and stable and what too has spilled on the floor and splattered on the ceiling, but with deliberate placement of some design all the same.

When I had found my spot at the Freer, I took my shoes off and started reaching up and out and over into the thickness of empty space around me. I spun in slow motion a few times, trying to catch my reflection in the glass panes protecting ancient Japanese screens. The lighting was too dim for me to see my reflection and so I stopped looking for myself. I found I was content just moving my body.

I started experimenting with trying to spell my first name with my arm, and then my head, and then my shoulder, and then my foot. Then I thought to try spelling my first name with my right arm and my last name with my left leg--a great brain challenge for sure! While twisting and contorting in the empty gallery room, lots of thoughts swam through me. I started thinking about how I am often confronted with the common objection to dancing: "I don't dance/I don't know how to dance/I don't like dancing." I think it's impossible to not know how to dance; you don't know how you're breathing, but you find yourself breathing all the time. A thought popped up: "The Movement is Inevitable." After dancing for a while longer, I sat down and wrote this:

The Movement is Inevitable
the dance is already happening internally,
and has always been happening there, if no where else
The blood dances through your heart and veins
The oxygen leaps through your blood,
All the movement within you gives birth
to the life you are living on the outside
The body is the container of an ancient
sacred
magical dance--and what, what are you
gonna do with it?
The dance belongs to all of us, even you.


(A Kamoro woman from East Indoneasia prepares for a ritual dance, Bali, May 2006)

cold feet diaries

no, i did not leave anyone at the aisle.
i did however, dance on the frigid mall betweeen the capitol and the monument on a brisk november sunday. i am so proud of myself, for pushing myself to go out and dance in spite of the cold and the wind. it was a blessed time, keeping myself warm in the winds of change. people passed by. rodrigo from portugal asked could he take my picture, and i said sure. he says he'll email when he gets back home. he caught me in the perfect sunlight that pours out between passing clouds. he captured moments otherwise swallowed up in the memory of time. he grabbed my dancing body with his camera, and so did some others, but they did not ask my permission.

i was wearing my special five-finger shoes one of my sponsors got me. so i wasn't barefoot, but my feet were cold by the end of my 75 minutes of OSA. and i was so happy, so excited that i had danced, that i didn't realize my feet were numb until i walked away and into the national gallery of art to warm up and put my other socks and shoes on.

whenever i go into the national gallery of art it's like returning to the scene of a crime. over 18 months ago, the OSA project as I've been presenting it to the world was birthed there, in the East Building. i was with a dear friend, Celeste, and we danced for two hours, without interruption. crowds of people passing by stopped to explore our movement with there eyes, including a group of 40+ middle schoolers. it was one of my favorite OSAs of all times. it was upon leaving (we were putting our shoes and coats on), that a gallery guard came over to us and said (and I quote) "you can't be doing no ballet in here"--and from there I was fired up to liberate all public spaces with movement.

i thought it was all so ironic, that all the guards had watched us dance for two hours. that they had repositioned themselves around the gallery so that even on their breaks they could watch us. i thought after all that, when we were finished, no less, a guard comes to tell us to "stop". how can you stop movement? would you be any more successful containing the ocean? and which ocean could you contain as all of them are connected and flow into each other, and if not into each other then to some gulf or river or something. see, the movement too is just as elusive. it is not something to be captured, rather something to allow to flow through you because it is bigger than you and me and everyone else. the dance is so big that any request to "stop" doing it is absurd to me. would you ask god to stop loving, would you ask mothers to stop giving birth, would you tell the clouds to only send down one drop of rain? the dance too is too big to control, and why would we want to? it's much more fulfilling to be a participant in the movement, than to attempt to be its obstacle. such efforts are a waste of life force energy. come now, my dear living beings...let's dance!

The Wishing Womb and other dreams

I am writing and dancing in my head all the time. "The Wishing Womb" is a segment of the I am the Mother Project that I'm sharing at an audition in a couple of weeks. This is really major because I don't audition for anything. I don't believe in competition when it comes to artistic expression. I believe everyone's creative contribution is valid and welcome, and who is anyone to judge? So all that said, I'm pushing myself to audition because it is an area outside of my comfort zone...and one never knows what might happen...right? Also, planning, organizing, choreographing, and all that jazz—not my first mode of action. A lot of my movement is born in the moment and I don't spend a lot of energy trying to archive it or remember it for later. I trust more movement will come and it always does.

Of course, sometimes I do want to remember the dances I do, and because I don't often take the initiative, I thought an audition adventure would be a good exercise for me in doing the things I never really do.

So now what? Here I am at the fertile portal of infinite possibilities and I find myself thinking and envisioning the dance, but not actually doing it. I find excuses like eager children on an Easter egg hunt. I’m tired. I’m cold. I’m thirsty, I’m hungry (my favorite reason)—and on and on, until another day has drifted by and I’ve still not worked on the dance. And what is “working on the dance” really mean to me? It’s a developing concept. I really am still learning about me and how I create. Some people write it down. Some draw pictures. Me…I talk to myself, I sing, I run in circles, I make believe the world is really an intergalactic galaxy with lots of other beings that want to dance with me. As you can see there’s no systematic approach to my creativity. It’s like wandering through a forest and then happening upon a clearing in the woods. And there, in that space, I can begin.

Sometimes I’m drawn to the clearing space by a dream. I awoke this morning reflecting on a series of interesting dreams I’d had. One was about running into an close friend of mine from my studies in Ghana, Clara Yaa Nsiah Asantewaa. She was walking on U Street in DC and telling me how she was working off the record as a babysitter. She told me she was homeless and I gave her all my info and told her to come and stay with me if she wanted. And then, in another dream, I was sitting with these little girls and one of them asked me: “How many people are you?” And I thought, what a profoundly deep question, coming from a child. But should I be surprised, the children are the smartest of our lot.

So anyway, I answer her that I was a teacher this morning, and now I’m going to be an actress, and that tomorrow I’d be a model, and then a dancer. And then I told them to dream really big, and that they can imagine the world in any way they want to, and to not think there’s anything too silly or too farfetched about their dreams. As I went off on my passionate sermon of dreams, I realized in that delicate conscious “observer” space, that I was talking to my inner child. I was telling myself to dream big, to not feel inhibited by anyone or anything.

I woke up to a buzzing cell phone; it was LaDiosa calling to update me on her life in the past 24 hours. We hadn’t talked the day before because I get no cell phone reception on lovers lane. The first thing I said to her was an account of all of my dreams, especially the part about the little girls. LaDiosa agreed that it was really special that they’d asked me “How many people are you?”

It reminds me of the character Lissie in Alice Walker’s Temple of My Familiar, because she narrates all the different people that she has been. And then it made me think of my creative journey with the I am the Mother Project. Sometimes when I’m dancing, I’ll start to “tune in” to one of the mothers. I might start singing a song and realize it captures the spirit of one of my great-grandmothers, or I’ll be doing a gesture and feels it’s connected to the movement vocabulary of another aunt. It’s a fluid process. At times it seems as effective as trying to hold a piece of the ocean with your hands. The creative opening is so delicate and fragile, and just as you can only hold water for a second, sometimes the creative “ah hah!” moment seems just as fleeting.

Whatever way I interpret its origins, I have to ride these moments to fullest when they come. I have faith in the ever-abundant creativity, of course. But there are times when the dance seems stuck or delayed, like a faucet that spits out gurgles of water. Imagine being thirsty for your dance or your song or whatever and grabbing onto whatever little bit of inspiration floated past you. That is how I’ve been feeling lately. It’s interesting, no judgment, just observing. Wondering what vision the next dream will bring.