Two (Dance) Steps Back

It must happen on all pilgrimages. People start walking, then something stands in their way.

Last June, as part of my ongoing art pilgrimage, I began taking ballet. I wasn't great at it, but I was making progress. I was strong and flexible and having fun. It even amused me to think about someone at my age aspiring to tutu-hood. :)

Then in the Fall I became very ill and was completely immobile for three weeks, then barely mobile for another three. I figured that when it was over, I'd go back to business as usual. So I returned to the ballet barre sometime in the late Fall.

By Christmas, I began to get discouraged. I hadn't realized what a setback I'd suffered from immobility, and had tried to keep on as if nothing had happened.

It had.

I was no longer strong and flexible, and I started to injure myself. I couldn't even sit cross legged on the floor anymore. Well, I may not be a spring chicken as they say, but I've always been able to sit any which way I like. When you can't sit according to your whims anymore, something's got to give.

So I've stopped dancing.




Well, at least I've stopped ballet.

There is some sadness in this, and I'm not sure I'll go back. I've also realized just what a non-dancer brain I possess. It's not about grace in movement, it's about the way I can't seem to speak back with my body when I see the teacher speak with hers. I think it might be a proximity/visual thing, because I sure enjoy mirror-dancing with my Littlest (boy do we have fun).

Anyway, right now I'm contenting myself with reading books about ballet. Yesterday I read one about Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring. Somewhere in it, they noted that Graham said the body always tells the truth, and that's what she was aiming for in her dances. I'm aiming for that too. And I don't want my truth to be injury.




We'll see where this new road goes. If nothing else, I have an after-dinner dance date with my Littlest a few nights a week. That girl can twirl. And I'm happy to lend her a steadying hand.


Photos of the book In the Wings: Behind the Scenes at the New York City Ballet.

Ascension

I'm reading a book called Apollo's Angels. It's a beautifully-written history of ballet. Apollo apparently represents the 'body ideal' and of course angels go to the author's assertion that dancers desire to ascend (and as she points out, much of ballet indeed includes sprites, sylphs and other winged things).

The other day, while reading this book, and after having chosen to dance that morning with surrender in mind, I was struck by this quote...

"If anything, ballet is purifying, every movement physically honed and essential, with no superfluity or excess: it is a kind of grace."

I'm not sure that grace is always without superfluity or excess, but this is perhaps the particular grace of ballet.

Thinking on all this, I ended up writing a poem (you are not surprised, yes? :)

Ascension

Apollo's angels
will come at different hours
lifting high their delicate hands

praising the wind
that wraps itself
around the feet of God

Apollo's angels
will leap in mirrored halls
finding the heart that beats in time

with satined feet;
they will come
waving chiffon on currents of

perfumed air, there will be
no memory of their movements
beyond these bodies

that knew this prayer.

In the Beginning Was the Dance

Dance gets around my ordinary ways of thinking. I can't evaluate, process, analyze. I have to imitate, mirror, experience. It asks things of me I don't know how to give. It makes me a child again, seeking, watching.

Yesterday I smiled through much of my ballet dancing. It was reaching into untouched places, pulling up joy, spilling it out of toes and fingertips. If I could have laughed without causing too much interruption, I believe I would have.

Then, last night, awakened from dreams, I remembered a dancer I met in New York City this spring. I don't know what we were talking about, but I suddenly said to him, "In the beginning was the dance..." And I pictured the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters like a dove, dancing us into existence.

I also remembered an exchange I had with someone else who could not accept that God speaks through much of anything but words and text. "In the beginning was the Word..." he told me. I asked him what was in the end. Asked him to look at John-the-disciple's other ways of picturing God in Revelation. Secretly, I also wanted to say, "In the beginning was the dance..." To my mind, it's there in Proverbs too... Wisdom, the Christ-figure, dancing at the feet of God at the moment of Creation, just like a child.

In the beginning was the dance. And I am learning how to let it take me in its arms. Turn me out to the world.

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Laura's Silence

Dancing with the General

Some people can change a whole room by their presence.

That's what she did yesterday.

My regular new acquaintances weren't at ballet. But she was.

I had never met her before, and as I took my place at the barre I felt uncomfortable, like I had no business sharing this space with her.

Was it the way she literally looked down her nose when she talked to the teacher? Or maybe it was the way she strutted like a General across the floor, shoulders back, each sway of the hip a declaration or a dare.

I felt tears rise. How could it be that I wanted to cry like a little child and run out of the room? I purposed to ignore her, but it was work. I accomplished less in her presence. I thought maybe I should salute her and say, "Yes, General Noriega."

It was a reminder to me of how fragile beginnings can be. And how we must not let things get in our way. And how we must try not to get in the way of others who are beginning things that long ago became second nature to us.

Tomorrow, if The General is there, I think I will pretend I'm a child picking daisies and offering them to the air.

Dancing on Spec

What does it take to dance?

Maybe the same things it takes to write.

Julia Cameron says she writes on spec. In other words, she doesn't need a guarantee that her writing will "go anywhere." She gives herself permission to simply write for the joy of it. When counseling a writing friend who is afraid of looking foolish, she reminds, "All we need is the courage to do the next right thing."

I have been thinking about this before Julia said it. I have been thinking about what it takes to play piano, study French, dance ballet. All these things have required permission from me. Permission to do one thing at a time. One more scale under my fingers, one more foreign phrase, and now one more pointed toe.

To the fearful writer friend, Julia also says, "Don't worry about being new. Worry about being human."

Translation...

Don't worry about being Chopin, worry about feeling the notes. Don't worry about working as a translator, worry about the way French caresses the heart. Don't worry about being Nutcracker material (slim, graceful, strong), just worry about embracing the surprise of movement.

Go ahead, I hear Julia say. Play, speak, dance on spec. The delight is yours.

After The Dressing Room

Yesterday I was happy with my body.

Today, not so much.

Shopping for ballet leggings can do that to a person. Suddenly the shape of my legs was made real by black cotton, running from ankle to thigh and onward, hugging all the way.

Tomorrow I am going to try to be happy with my body again. Or maybe even this afternoon, if I find it in me. I think it will come to this: remembering there is art in this body, art that wants to reach through my fingertips, touch the ceiling.

I should have known that an art pilgrimage would go all the way. Ask me to love everything about me, on my way to loving the world.

Let me begin with my feet then. I like the way they curve when I point my toes. I won't try to love more than this for today. Just my feet. And the way they curve.