CD Magazine #17

sound reverence • giving trends • travel new england

conscious DANCER winter 2011 issue #17

movement for a better world

time to embody occupy the movement with love

Roots of Contact Improvisation Evolution

Being Danced Lead with the Body

Nothing is more impor tant than feeling good: Onesie Harmony.

See our clothing line at

WarriorWithinDesigns.com To schedule a tting at our San Francisco showroom contact warriorwithndesigns@gmail.com All of our garments are proudly made in San Francisco, California.

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Photo: courtesy of www.journeydance.com

Quixotic Fusion exemplifies aerial dance.

22 FEATURES 18 B eing Danced

22 As Above, So Below Photo Top: courtesy of www.quixoticfusion.com / Photo middle: igor zenin / Photo bottom: flickr – Mikaela

Performers are no longer bound by gravity in today’s cutting-edge world of aerial and underwater dances. We take a visual tour of these new dimensions of movement.

26 Making Contact

As culture was evolving through the 20th century, a sea change took place in the world of movement. Contributing Editor Elana Silverman scans dance innovations before the ’60s, and Contact Quarterly Editor Nancy Stark Smith reveals the people and process that led to the appearance of Contact Improvisation.

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18 Departments

Philip Shepherd has lived a many-faceted life leading up to his current incarnation as visionary author. His recent book New Self, New World tackles the question of what it means to be embodied in today’s world, and why bodily wisdom is an essential partner to rational thought.

9 Inspiration: TransDanced TransDance founder Heather Munro Pierce holds space in the High Sierra.

11 CURRENT: Occupy Movement Dancing flash mobs occupy love in support of the movement.

13 spotlight: The Rosen Method Odile Atthalin shares her experience with the elder-friendly form of Rosen Movement.

14 destination: New England DJ Root of Journeydance fame gives a tour of hotspots for dancers.

16 WARMUPS • Bodhitrix: The Players Deck • Debbie Rosas: The Body’s Business • Seven Surefire Class Fillers 30 VITALITY: Tasteful Giving Our readers dish up sweet ideas for sharing and caring.

32 SOUNDS: Reverence and Resonance Lloyd Barde explores the power of music for connection and healing.

35 MOVEMENT MENU • Winter Highlights • Book Reviews: Sleight, Uncertainty, Spark • DVD: Vine of the Soul • MixMaster: Alia Rhythms 46 RESULTS: InterPlay Enlivens Learn to follow the wisdom of your own intuition. conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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Readers Share Moving in a Blur My glasses remain in place as I surrender to the floor. In a 20/20 world, I stretch and roll, waking up every muscle and joint, stimulating my organs, and helping my mind relax its captainship. I get vertical as the music transitions from tempo-free soundscapes to something with a beat. Soon I am moving to the rhythms, my revitalized self easing into the holy exercise.

Now I start to perspire (I’m quite good at this), so I find my way back to where I’ve left my shoes and water bottle. Before my glasses get the chance to fly off my sweat-slick face, I store them in my shoe. The dance floor instantly becomes a moving Monet: fuzzy swatches of color and momentum without specific features or points. In a way, this is how I know that I’m no longer warming up but dancing.

In this field of kinetic impressionism, the last fleck of logical governance is free to leave my movement. For me, this is an unmitigated positive. I feel safe where I dance, so not seeing sharply doesn’t worry me. Moreover, as someone prone to self-consciousness, the inability to read faces lets me maintain the

assumption — usually correct — that nobody is watching or judging me. Instead, I can interact with bodies as wholes, moving into and out of shared dances, protecting myself and looking out for those near me in a general way.

Just to sense the bodies around me and to feel my own extremities without needing to examine them is a miracle of sorts. It feels like swimming, like surrender. In the uncertain world of 20/300 vision, forms are only as defined as they need to be, and it is truly impossible to sweat the details. I can get lost in motion without being tripped up by uncertainty, awkwardness, titillation, or anybody else’s mental dance.

This is what I imagine it would be like to dance inside an Impressionist painting. The world around is vibrant but soft. We are all just brush strokes, motions who only mean themselves. The only drawback I can think of is that I might not recognize you if I see you there. Don’t think I’m being unfriendly— I just can’t see that it’s you. If you remember this when you see me dancing with my glasses off, please come dance with me to say hello.

Perspective by Daniel Ari Berkeley, CA

Our Apologies!

In the last issue (#17), we inadvertently omitted some important information about our friends in Dallas in the Destination: T is for Texas spread. To start, our writer Monica Blossom hosts a monthly outdoor Ecstatic Community Moondance at White Rock Lake. Our friends at Move Studios in Dallas offer Nia classes every day along with other

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movement modalities including Movement Montage created and led by Liz Tucker every Tuesday evening. And, Mati Vargas-Gibson offers 5Rhythms classes weekly at the Sammons Center for the Arts. Hats off to the vibrant Texas dance community; we thank you for all you do! Please write to us at editor@consciousdancer.com.

ConsciousDancer.com

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ou probably have some experience in your life where you find yourself deep in appreciation. For me it could be while I’m dancing or playing records, or doing a jigsaw puzzle with my four-year-old. These moments are like gratitude anchors that pull me out of the troubles of the world and remind me of that old book by Voltaire when the character Candide says, “Everything is exactly as it should be, in this most perfect of all possible worlds.” Indeed, while that may seem trite, it is Candide’s unflagging positive attitude that leads him through extraordinary travails to peace and safety.

Like Candide, I try to remember that when things get tough, it’s possibly just the trial I need—and I strive to replace fear with love wherever I can.

For society on the whole a moment of serious upheaval and adjustment has arrived. Large numbers of people are willing to brave serious discomfort and grave danger to bring about positive

change for 100% of us. My hope is that dancers can help to infuse a serious situation with some levity, and help connect the global community with “movement for a better world.”

Another moment has arrived here at the heart of this magazine. After 17 issues of collaboration, my co-founder Aspen Madrone and I have come to a healthy

STAFF

CO NT R IBUTO R S

Mark Metz & Aspen Madrone published by Moving Arts International Editor-in-Chief Mark Metz Creative Direction Aspen Madrone Design and production Isabelle Metz & Brian Yee managing Editor Rachel Trachten office manager Karina Louise contributing editors Liz Mac, Jetta Martin, Elana Silverman, Mariana Rose Thorn Staff writers Rachel Trachten, Elana Silverman Sales and community Aspen Madrone & Liz Mac Webmaster Steve Shaw I.T. angel Luis Echeverria Licensing Efrain Correal founded in 2007 by

Cirolia, Deborah Meyer, Casie Casados, Emily Anderson, and Veronica Ramirez.

Checking In

transition point in our evolution and are parting ways at the helm of Conscious Dancer. I’m eternally grateful for her dedication and spirit and will always value her tremendous contribution to the community. I feel fortunate and blessed by the chance to lead Conscious Dancer into the future.

We bring the passion of Occupy into these pages, highlighting the natural and human element of the movement. We also bring you author Philip Shepherd’s wisdom on embodiment, improvisation pioneer Nancy Stark Smith’s look at the history of Contact Improvisation, and a spine-tingling photo essay on aerial and underwater dance. Plus a tip of the hat to three favorite modalities, TransDance, InterPlay, and the Rosen Method. Enjoy our winter serving!

With warm wishes and gratitude,

mark metz, Editor - in - Chief

Philip Shepherd is the author of New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in the Twenty-first Century. He is also a workshop leader, lecturer, private coach and actor. As a teen he cycled alone through Europe, the Middle East, Iran, India, and finally Japan, where he studied classical Noh theatre. That trip deeply informed his ability to critique Western culture and the assumptions that shape it. His feature story discusses an aspect of Noh theatre and its relevance to embodied movement, with excerpts from his book. www.philipshepherd.com

Elana Silverman is a Bay Area writer, educator, dancer, and regular contributor to Conscious Dancer magazine. In this issue, she covers the development of dance in the 20th century and New England’s hot spots for movement and dining. She also performs with Deep Root Dance Collective and works at a local high school. Every summer, Elana skips town to live in a tent and lead whitewater rafting trips for the American River Touring Association. She holds a BA in dance from Smith College. elana@consciousdancer.com

special thanks to Laura

mark@consciousdancer.com ads@consciousdancer.com Subscribe www.consciousdancer.com Editorial Ad Sales

other Inquiries & submissions

info@consciousdancer.com PO Box 2330, Berkeley, CA 94702 (510) 778-9131 Conscious Dancer is a quarterly active lifestyle magazine that celebrates transformative dance, mind-body fitness, and energy movement arts. Conscious Dancer does not endorse any specific modality, practitioner, or product. Please consult a health professional before attempting any new movement activities or health regimens. Conscious Dancer disclaims any liability for loss or injury in connection with activities portrayed or advice given herein. Please send all editorial mail, manuscripts, letters to the editor, and address changes via email or to our Conscious Dancer address listed above. © 2011 Moving Arts International. Printed in the USA with post consumer-waste content using soy-based inks. Please reuse and recycle. All rights reserved.

Lloyd Barde is music editor of Common Ground magazine and a frequent contributor to various publications. His story “The Cure is Curiosity” appears in the book Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Lives: Defining Moments. As DJ Heartbeat, his musical mixes are mesmerizing and all-inclusive. Lloyd produces two concert series in the Bay Area, and continues to sell CDs, having founded Backroads Music 30 years ago. His Sounds article explores the musical and psychological powers of reverence and resonance. Lloyd@well.com

Odile Atthalin, MA Psychology, has been a Rosen Method Movement teacher since 1995 and leads weekly RosenDance classes in Berkeley, California. In our Spotlight story, she writes about her RosenDance movement class, based on the work of renowned physical therapist Marion Rosen. Odile is also a Rosen Method Bodywork practitioner in private practice and director/senior training teacher of the Rosen Method Open Center, offering bodywork and movement workshops in the US and Europe. www.rosenmethodopencenter.com/movement or odile@lmi.net

COVER > Dancers in San Francisco, California, lend steps and spirit to the Occupy Movement.

PHOTO > Taken by Kai Moore. www.peanutjellysandwich.com conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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transformation community leadership

The Path of Embodied Awakening facilitator training reach your full potential teach movement medicine

with samantha sweetwater, christopher campbell & guest dj’s

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EMBODIMENT: march 2 – 11, 2012 VISION: april 28 – may 5, 2012 MASTERY: july 13 – 22, 2012 VISION: july 30 – august 6, 2012

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inspiration

TransDanced

Photo: Lori A. Cheung www.theportraitphotographer.com

Elements are one of the keys to transformation in the ecstatic rituals of Heather Munro Pierce.

Modern-day temple dancer Heather Munro Pierce is the creator of a form of movement meditation/ecstatic dance called TransDance速. Seen here on the shore of Lake Tahoe during a spring retreat, Pierce offers a style of facilitation that honors the mysteries of life and the unfolding of the soul. www.transdance.com

JourneY Dance

™

Fall in Love with Yourself!

January 18 - 23, 2012

JourneyDance™: Teacher Training Module 1 San Antonio, TX www.thesynergystudio.com

February 2 - 5, 2012

Carribean Yoga Conference Montego Bay, Jamaica www.caribbeanyogaconference.com

March 16 - 18, 2012

Journey Dance™: You Are the Prayer Toni Bergins and Adam Sutton Kripalu Center www.kripalu.org Toni Bergins, Creator & Director of JourneyDance, inspires self-esteem, inner wisdom, emotional health, spiritual practice and total well-being, leading JourneyDance retreats internationally.

Full schedule, events & store: www.journeydance.com 10

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OCCUPY MOVEMENT Koff-Chapin, www.touchdrawing.com / photo Bottom: Tom Levy, www.tomlevy.net

by maureen freehill

One Tribe Flash Mob dances the pain of separation, then invokes a message of unity, creating a bridge of reconciliation at Occupy San Francisco and Oakland on November 19. “You can’t evict an idea that has been embodied,” says co-choreographer Samantha Sweetwater.

As conscious dancers, we are activated by direct experiences of dancing the world awake. Dancers have always been activists, keeping our bodies in action. Being free to creatively express our innermost passions and insights also inspires others to express their own truths. A profound shift of radical inclusion is shown in the consensus process of Occupiers worldwide. Affirming that every being matters is a powerful step for humanity. Sustainable balanced systems OCCUPY DANCE Making connections by fully engaging our bodies are essential; our bodies teach that we do not need to be with play and fun in events like surprise Flash Mobs is a crucial part of regulated by something outside of ourselves. With somatic this WE-volution movement. Spontaneous group choreography and freeawareness we embody interconnectedness and stand for form dance are powerful forms of prayer that celebrate the sacredness non-violation. Knowing we make a difference, we trust our that unites us. The Occupy movement faces serious challenges, a wide diversity of perspectives, and risks from fear and violence. The power of hearts and bodies and support one another to be and move collective music and dance brings a vital levity to Occupy. Let’s make it in ways that most inspire us. We feel free to occupy our a love-olution, freeing our spirits so walls that separate us can melt and our bodies and dance the sovereignty of our truth. true power can rise. www.dancingwithoutborders.org OCCUPY NATURE The survival of

Photo Top: matthias geiger / photo Middle: Deborah

Maureen Momo Freehill embodies the dance of the salmon at the November 17 Mass Day of Action.

OCCUPY HARMONY For generations, martial artists and yogis have placed our bodies in certain poses to activate higher states of consciousness; we are now doing this en masse without need for hierarchic leadership. Ancient symbols like the flower of life, the torus, star tetrahedron, and other powerful shapes activate oneness and connection within the group. We sense the unseen energetics of ourselves and the environment and can transform it. Intentionally dancing a full spectrum of shapes and frequencies upshifts the whole to harmony. Activating in unity, we synchronize and attune our individual and group body, mind, and spirit. www.humandalas.com

less than one percent of beings on planet earth — we humans — is based on resources of our non-human relatives. Indigenous cultures have honored and danced this fact since time began, yet our conventional urban lifestyles often separate us from our wild nature and power. Through nature-based conscious dance practices we open our senses, imagination, and cellular memories of our ancestors. Our embodied arts practices can restore intimate connections and sustain balanced relationships with all beings. Go dance in a wild place, move with a plant or animal, or fully occupy a wild and natural thing — yourself! www.butopia.org

Occupiers doing HuManDalas in Oakland, California, embody the form of a five-pointed star to connect the earth to the heavens.

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spotlight

Moving through Life

RosenDance brings joyful movement with ease and grace.

by Odile Atthalin

Photo: courtesy rosen method open center

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arrive early and jog around the sunlit studio, enjoying the CD of James Galway, moving in different combinations and directions, Sacred Earth Drums by David and Steve Gordon. By 9 a.m. our focusing on balance and fun. circle has formed, ten women and men ages 30 to 80, greeting one I model the moves and name each part of our bodies involved. My another for a morning of RosenDance. words are simple; my voice conveys ease and playfulness. These verbal Based on teachings developed by master physical therapist Marion cues keep us focused on what we sense and feel as we move. This is a Rosen in the 1960s, my class in Berkeley, California, offers safe, gentle work-in more than a work-out. As Marion Rosen says, “Timing that movement to music, progressing from small, simple moves to larger, allows you to be aware of the impact of movement on the inside is very more complex ones. Rosen, who is 97 and taught movement until she different from mindless performed movement.” Best known for her was in her 80s, called her method “physical therapy internationally renowned bodywork technique—the in reverse” because she created it in response “No worrying, no Rosen Method—Rosen also developed a movement to clients asking how they could avoid needing method with similar goals. As the bodyworker’s trying hard. We are touch facilitates opening and releasing through physical therapy.

Class starts with Bob Marley’s reggae classic of chronic tension, so does the practice of in the flow, and it’s layers “One Love,” to accompany moves that lubricate moving consciously. Added benefits include increased our joints as we bend, swing, sway, rotate, jiggle, a wonderful feeling.” flexibility, range of motion, and physical and emotional and twist. We move our hips, feet, and leg muscles awareness. to the sensual tunes of South Pacific panpipes, exploring our range of To end class, we sit on the floor back to back with a partner, sensing motion. Switching to slow Leonard Cohen songs for deeper stretches, and flexing our backs; then we lie down, and as we listen to haunting we expand our chests and loosen our diaphragms, allowing more Buddhist chants, we roll and twist from side to side, enjoying our spine breath, enlivening the core of our bodies. For an element of surprise, in contact with the floor. We assimilate the experiences of the previous I vary the music and moves with every class. segments, relax deeply, and allow all parts of ourselves to come together We pause for breath and feelings between segments. Mindful in embodied self-awareness. repetitions create familiarity and ease. No worrying, no trying hard.

RosenDance is an ideal movement practice for anyone who wants We are in the flow, and it’s a wonderful feeling. Moving in a circle, we to move consciously, well into their 80s. Medical research continues to partner with another and share the mood brought on by the music. show the benefits of moving to music: it builds new neural pathways, Community and camaraderie builds. For an introvert like me, it’s my makes us steadier on our feet, and protects us from falling. weekly dose of gregariousness.

“Every movement can be a dance,” says Rosen. “To use movement as Ready for larger movements, we try a grapevine sequence to upbeat a dance, to dance through life, that is really our goal.”

Motown rhythms. Then we dance across the floor to the lyrical flute www.RosenMethodOpenCenter.com conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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destination

Elements interact at the Waterfire festival in Rhode Island.

New ENgland: Roots & Revivals

by Root Cuthbertson

T

he barefoot freestyle dances that started in the 1960s and ‘70s are relative newcomers to the New England dance scene, whose heritage harks back centuries. In more recent times, Dance Freedom, where dancers still congregate weekly, began in Harvard Square in 1968.

A consortium of dances with similar success and longevity, now united as Dance New England, hosts an annual summer camp. These dances form the core of the current conscious dance revival, moving from barefoot, substance-free beginnings to embrace the notion that dance can be both social and spiritual.

The next generation of conscious dances have emerged from this notion too, bringing Nia, 5Rhythms, Soul Motion, YogaDance, Shake Your Soul, and JourneyDance to studios and retreat centers across the region.

Partner dances also abound in New

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England, from Contact Improvisation and Argentine tango to swing, salsa, and ballroom. We’ve got rug-cutting conventions, lindy hops, milongas, and jams. Our specialty is contra dance, a partnered “mixer” descending from 17th-century English country dancing.

Contra has enjoyed widespread appeal since the 1850s, with a resurgence after the New England Folk Festival began in 1944. And Morris dance teams, with their origins in the traditional dances of 15th-century England, appear all over the region, clearly influencing political mummers troupes like Vermont’s Bread & Puppet Theater.

In 1933, the seeds of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival were planted.

America’s longest running international dance festival began with a performance

by Ted Shawn and his Men Dancers in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts.

Drum and dance events flourish as well, embodying ancient and indigenous folkways. Regular drum circles abound, with yearly gatherings like Rites of Spring in Mt. Washington, Massachusetts, where dancers can connect with nature, fire, and community.

Claiming roots in the Mediterranean Goddess-worshipping cultures that ushered in the agricultural revolution circa 10,000 BCE, sacred circle dancing may be the great-great-grandma of all conscious dance forms. Weekly dances at the Neskaya Movement Arts Center in Franconia, New Hampshire, are the modern incarnation of a dance that’s been ongoing for thousands of years.

New Englanders have no qualms about mixing tradition and innovation, Pilgrim’s pride and Yankee ingenuity. We’re proud to be part of creating a dance culture that honors both the roots and the revival!

Photo: Courtesy Waterfire.org

From the rocky North Atlantic coast to the Green Mountains, Lake Champlain to Narragansett Bay, New England is a patchwork of small farming hamlets, college towns, and bustling urban centers.

GREAT FLOORS Community Circle Dance, New Haven, CT Monthly dance at the Friends Meetinghouse, “moving in the footsteps of our ancestors.” www.nhcircledance.yolasite.com Dance Freedom, Cambridge, MA The grandmother of all freestyle dances in North America, this weekly barefoot boogie, held in a beautiful church in Harvard Square, has been inspiring dancers since 1968. www.dancefreedom.com Dance Friday, Brookline, MA The other oldest Barefoot Boogie on the continent welcomes children and chatting at its laid-back weekly jam. www.dancefriday.org Dance Spirit, Northampton, MA

In this conversation-free space, participants of all faiths are invited to dance their prayers, acknowledging many forms of deity and spirituality at bi-weekly dances. www.dancespirit.org Dance Spree, Northampton, MA Going strong for 30 plus years. Family friendly, social, and in the heart of downtown Northampton every Friday evening. www.dancespree.org

warning: “Spirit Dance RI events may cause uncontrollable grooving, happiness, and states of bliss!” www.spiritdanceri.org Dance Tribe, Shelburne, VT Weekly dances serving the greater Burlington area based on 5Rhythms and Soul Motion. www.vermontdancetribe.org

GOOD TASTE Claire’s Corner Copia, New Haven, CT This organic, vegetarian, kosher restaurant is all about community. Claire’s displays local artists’ work, donates to Connecticut charities, and oh yeah, serves up ooh-ey, gooey, obsessionworthy food. www.clairescornercopia.com

Sky Meadow Retreat, Stannard, VT A small family homestead on 120 acres of hilltop views in the Northeast Kingdom. Sky Meadow’s renovated post-and-beam barn is a haven for retreats on conscious communication, insight meditation, and couples work. www.skymeadowretreat.com

LEARN 5 College Dance Department: Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, Mount Holyoke Colleges and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Five distinctive programs united into one large department offering BA, BFA, and MFA degrees in dance. www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/dance

Bread & Puppet, Glover, VT Part puppet show, part circus, part social movement, the Bread & Puppet collective has been crafting delightfully subversive performances and selling homespun artwork since 1963. www.breadandpuppet.org

SAVE-THE-DATES January The Global Underscore, Earthdance, Plainfield, MA In 1972 Nancy Stark Smith began her love affair with Contact Improvisation. She continues to explore many styles of post-modern dance, attracting a global following for her annual three-week dance training. www.nancystarksmith.com

Cafe Evolution, Vegan Cafe and Performance Space, Florence, MA Live music, comfy couches, hearty Sunday brunch, and unbelievably delicious vegan pastries. www.cafe-evolution.com Karma Vegan Cafe and Performance Space, Northampton, MA Pure, healthy, beautiful food, herbal elixir apothecary, live music and dance events in the performance space and art gallery. www.bekarma.com Warming heart and soul in the circle at Earthdance.

Lesley University, Cambridge, MA This pioneer in the field of expressive therapies offers graduate degrees with a focus in art, dance, music, or drama. www.lesley.edu Samadhi Integral Center, Newton, MA An integral life practice center with regular classes in yoga, meditation, bodywork, Nia, JourneyDance, Kosmic Pulse, and tribal beat drumming. www.samadhiintegral.com Earthdance in Massachusetts remains snug in winter.

Pollinate, Northampton, MA Expect a college-aged crowd, electronic music, and “community offerings” at the beginning of each dance, at which presenters share their passions with the group. www.facebook.com/pollinate.dance

Garden Grille Vegetarian Café, Pawtucket, RI Drool over a menu that includes everything from vegan nachos to arugula-mango-avocado-beet-infused jicama-cashew gomasio. www.gardengrillecafe.com

Spirit Waves Community Dance, Orleans, MA Weekly classes on Cape Cod, including YogaDance, and a blend of Soul Motion, 5Rhythms, and Continuum. www. lifecentercapecod.com

Zabby and Elf’s Stone Soup, Burlington, VT Creative vegan/vegetarian food made from scratch. Menus change daily, inspired by seasonal availability and whimsy. www.stonesoupvt.com

Photos: Courtesy of Earthdance.org

Dances of Universal Peace, Portland, ME Monthly dances led by Elaine McGillicuddy, “moving to the universal rhythm of truth and love.” www.portlandyoga.com/dances.html Neskaya Movement Arts Center, Franconia, NH Offering weekly movement disciplines that are also spiritual practices including Nia, T’ai Chi, and Sacred Circle Dance in a building designed with sacred geometry. www.neskaya.com Spirit Dance, North Kingstown, RI Monthly freestyle dances with a

REJUVENATE Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Falls Village, CT Transformative experiences integrating ecological awareness, vibrant Jewish spirituality, and social justice. www.isabellafreedman.org Western Massachusetts boasts numerous retreat centers including Earthdance, Sirius, and Rowe. Dancers will love their luscious floors, inspirational architecture, and wood-fired saunas and hot tubs to replenish the soles. www.massretreats.com

Kripalu Center, Stockbridge, MA Workshops and intensives with worldrenowned instructors in the Berkshire Hills. Also home to Let Your Yoga Dance, Shake Your Soul, and JourneyDance teacher trainings. www.kripalu.org Bates College, Lewiston, ME Comprehensive programs in contemporary dance, and home of the worldrenowned Bates Dance Festival. www.kent.bates.edu/dance Antioch University New England, Keene, NH Graduate programs in dance/movement therapy and counseling in New Hampshire’s most bucolic and bustling little city. www.antiochne.edu

March International Contact Improvisation Jam, Burlington, VT. Led warm-ups, open jamming, performances, and underscore. contactimprovvermont. blogspot.com. For more jams check out www.contactimprov.com April New England Folk Festival, Mansfield, MA Music, crafts, food, and dance from many lands: contra, Morris, English country, swing, clogging, square, and international folk dance. www.neffa.org May–October WaterFire, Providence, RI. Over 80 sparkling bonfires and flaming sculptures installed by Barnaby Evans along the three downtown rivers and Waterplace Park, with fire spinning, world music, gondola rides, and more. www.waterfire.org June Sacred Circle Dance Camp, Sandwich, MA, Five days on Cape Cod for sacred circle dance, Paneurhythmy, 5 Tibetan rites, Cherokee balance dance, Chi Gong, and chanting. www.facebook.com/Sacred-CircleDance-Camp-Cape-Cod

All That Matters, Wakefield, RI This once-little yoga studio now offers more than 50 weekly yoga classes, workshops, a retail store, and health care services. www.allthatmatters.com

July Strolling of the Heifers, Brattleboro, VT. A slow living summit, local food festival, and a parade of milk cows (rather than running bulls). www.strollingoftheheifers.com

Jacobs Pillow, Becket, MA Presenting America’s longest-running international dance festival, professional advancement training, extensive archives, and community outreach programs, “The Pillow” is New England’s home for cutting-edge choreography. www.jacobspillow.org

August Dance New England Summer Camp, Freedom, NH Eleven days of African, ballroom, Contact Improvisation, salsa, drum council, yoga, massage, live music jams, and community living on Lake Ossipee in the White Mountains. www.dne.org

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The Players Deck

by Bodhitrix Check out this hefty little deck of 108 AcroYoga poses, each illustrated with simple line drawings. The motto of Bodhitrix is “play to your potential,” and the enterprising English folks behind this brilliant deck have done a great service for the international AcroYoga community. AcroYoga tends to manifest itself in the gray area between ecstatic dance and traditional yoga, and much like Contact Improvisation fans, AcroYogis seek more connection and community than solo practitioners. The cards cover categories including stretches and

suspended therapeutics, balances like standing or counter, or supine foot and hand, plus a dozen variations for trios such as the three-headed dragon or the reverse figure head. Safety and expertise are emphasized; these cards should not replace the knowledge of an experienced teacher. Handsomely presented and ringbound in a cloth drawstring bag, this deck is a valuable tool to own and a great gift to give. In the words of Plato, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” www.bodhitrix.net

Photo Top: M. Metz / bottom: Tyler Blank

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

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the body’s business

By Debbie Rosas

Pulling Together Sometimes it’s the unlikely combinations that yield

the greatest discoveries. This was certainly true in regards to the creation of Nia.

When I met Carlos Aya Rosas in the early 1980s, he was a professional tennis player—and if you had told me back then that the two of us would develop an international movement practice based on the fusion of dance arts, martial arts, and healing arts, I would’ve laughed.

But we did. And I believe the culture that has emerged as

a result of this collaboration—one that recognizes the needs of the body, mind, emotions, and spirit—is instrumental in our evolution towards becoming holistically healthy beings. It continues to grow, because I’ve looked beyond what I can do as one individual; I’ve aligned myself with those who have the same motivations, the same desires.

Most recently, the Nia Training Faculty increased from 15 people to more than 50. I realized these were the women and men who could bring what I call their “gifts to bear” to manifest my vision for Nia, and carry it even further than I had originally imagined it could go. Together we will unearth new possibilities to shape a consciousness that extends beyond our own.

Getting Started • Do things that stimulate your body, mind, emotions, and spirit. All realms must work together for us to achieve holistic health.

• Collaborate with people who have different backgrounds but similar goals and philosophies.

• Connect with old and new acquaintances, especially those who seem strong in areas you’d like to improve.

• Listen when others share their ideas.

Keep a journal of thoughts and concepts that inspire you.

To learn more about Nia Co-Creator Debbie Rosas, and to access free material on Nia’s current educational course of study, visit NiaNow.com/Education.

seven surefire class fillers Give

Connect

Set up a fundraiser, with proceeds to a favorite cause. Ask staff and volunteers from the organization to attend class as well.

Class cards are a great way to build a committed dance crew. Offer a group rate as well as a drop-in fee.

Nourish

Invite a trainer or celebrity with a solid following to co-teach with you.

Organize a meal after class at your favorite eatery or a potluck at a local park.

Pair Up

Enrich

Be neighborly Visit local businesses and offer passes to their staff and clients.

Invite class members to bring a partner, with a tempting discount for the guest.

Pay it Forward Offer your dance as a gift with no strings attached. Participants, if they are moved into gratitude, pay it forward so others can dance too.

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Being Danced Take the leap toward embodiment by dropping out of your head and into your belly.

We live in a society that values head over heart, intellect over sensation. Our language, culture, and values offer constant reminders that the sensational intelligence of the body is not worth paying much attention to. In his recent book, New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in the Twenty-first Century, Philip Shepherd gives the primacy of body intelligence center stage.

Bodily wisdom is not just vital for free and fluid expression, but also offers a path toward living in the present moment. Shepherd’s cogent argument for the value of an embodied culture is meant for all, but carries a special resonance for dancers everywhere. BY PHILIP SHEPHERD 18

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Ph o to -i llustrati on: i go r zen in ww w. zen inp ho to . co m

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alcolm Gladwell looked at a phenomenon he called “physical genius” in an article of that name in the New Yorker. In the article Gladwell, the acclaimed author of Blink and The Tipping Point, considers the accomplishments of physical geniuses as diverse as Wayne Gretzky and Yo-Yo Ma. One of these individuals, the neurosurgeon Charlie Wilson, spoke of being moved by “a sort of invisible hand” as he operated on a brain aneurism. In all of these people, Gladwell notices “a distinctive fluidity and grace.” They execute their work with a sense of ease, harmony, and unity — and an absence of willfulness. These are also qualities associated with being “in the zone” — that somewhat other-worldly experience athletes in particular speak of, in which everything is seen and felt in vivid detail, and their deep trust in the moment enables them to surrender to the world’s energy, find perfect guidance there, and accomplish remarkable feats.

That sense of being in the zone also occurs in classical Japanese Noh theater. The climax of a Noh play is a dance performed by the central character as the chorus sings — and the main quality to indicate that the dance is going particularly well is when the audience has a sense that “the actor is being danced by the chorus.” To me, that quality of “being danced” is a sort of pinnacle achievement in all the performing arts, and is germane to conscious embodiment in general. That quality also provides one of the central themes of my book, New Self, New World, which looks at it from a number of perspectives. For instance, this excerpt considers an intriguing quote by Jerzy Grotowski, the renowned Polish theatre director: Addressing the problem of an actor’s expressiveness, Grotowski commented, True expression, one could say, is that of a tree.

makes it worthwhile to consider the conditions that enable it, and to identify some of the obstacles that might keep us from it. Many of those obstacles are actually created by our culture. For example, we are taught from birth that we have one brain, that it is located in the head, and that it is where our consciousness is located. None of that is actually true. Every cell in the body participates in our thinking, as research on neuropeptides has made clear. More than that, we actually have two brains. The second brain is located in the belly, and it is not a subset of the cranial brain — it is autonomous.

It thinks, acts, remembers, and perceives. Its importance in the psyche is something many other cultures recognize: The fact that our second brain … has only recently been recognized by medical science is a testament to longstanding prejudices that do not exist in other cultures. The Incas spoke of qosqo, the center in the belly that receives and digests the spiritual energies of the world. In Chinese medicine the belly is sometimes called Shen Ch’ue or The Mind Palace and is considered to be the seat of learning and the repository of truth. The Japanese consider the abdomen, or hara, to be the place in the body where one experiences the greatest possible presence of mind. To ask someone in Japan to think with his belly is to ask him to ponder an issue with his whole Being and truth. In fact, the Japanese language has a broad range of expressions in which they use hara where English uses head. Where we would call a person levelheaded they might say hara no aru hito, “the man with the belly”; of someone we found to be hotheaded they might say hara ga tatsu, “a person whose belly rises”— i.e. in anger; and someone who is scatterbrained they might call hara no dekite inai hito, “the man who has not developed his belly.”

Such parallels do not merely reflect different ways of seeing

Every tree is expressive — from the birch sapling to the

a similar issue; something more is going on: these examples

gnarled oak to the towering pine. What a tree expresses is

represent two different experiences of thinking itself. And it

the essence of its very Being, shining through all its living

would seem that the differences are created by culture.

relationships with the world ... Nothing that is expressed by the tree results from a decision to express. That is what separates the tree from most performers, and it is precisely Grotowski’s point: If the performer expresses, it is because he wants to express.

And so, division once again arises. There is a part of the performer which orders, and a part which executes the orders.

When “being danced,” the actor achieves an expression like that of the tree — there is no self-directing, self-dividing decision to move now like this, now like that. The actor’s responsiveness rather belongs to and expresses the energy of the whole of which he or she is a part — just as that of the tree does.

However you might name it, that experience of abandoned fluidity, of an unselfconscious, easy grace open to the pulse of the present, is something I think all artists long for, and dancers perhaps find more often than most. Its centrality to the artist’s experience 20

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Our culture is so utterly devoted to the preeminence of the head that it has become normal for us, and we don’t even notice how deep our devotion runs. So we live in an economy based on capitalism (which literally means “headism”), with major decisions made

by CEOs (“chief ” is another word that literally means “head”) in corporate headquarters, and we spend our lives trying to get ahead, as the world around us is organized by heads of church and state. When we secretly yearn to live in the penthouse, we fail to see that its attractiveness — living above all else, untouched by it, remote and detached, yet able to survey it in a glance — is rooted in our own physical experience of the self: we live in the penthouse of the body. It shouldn’t surprise us that much, then, that even though we’ve known for over a hundred years that we actually have two brains, we can’t quite comprehend it. The information is meaningless to us: our devotion to the head has left us without either the language or the conceptual tools to accommodate the facts of our own physiology.

One of the universal principles that shape all life on earth, and even the spiraling galaxies beyond, is that wholes are created by the union of complementary opposites. And the experience of “being danced,” lying as it does beyond all the divisions of decision-making and self-consciousness, is at its heart a profound experience of wholeness. We might recognize, then, that the brain in our cranium and the brain in our gut are equal, opposite, and complementary partners, and that it is in the exchanges between them that the wholeness of our consciousness is born.

If these brains represent the two aspects, or poles, of our consciousness, then the findings of both physiology and our own experience help us to understand that each has an essential, specialized function: it’s in the head that we can consciously think; it’s in the pelvis that we can consciously ‘be.’

The dissociated brain in the cranium is as little equipped to bring being into consciousness as the wordless brain in our gut is able to bring rational thinking into consciousness. Of course, the visceral brain does a great deal of thinking, just as the cranial brain is fully participant in being: it’s just that visceral thinking is empty of idea, and cranial being is insensate. For that reason, each needs the other’s strength; each finds its completion or complement through the other. Being is sensitized to the world with the help of rational thought; rational thought joins ‘what is’ only as it is informed by Being. We might simplify further and note that the cranial brain — the realm of will and idea — is the center of ‘doing,’ and the abdominal brain is the center of ‘being.’ That contrast brings a mythic perspective to the issue, suggesting that the cranial brain is the center of the male aspect of our consciousness and the visceral brain the center of the female aspect of our consciousness.

As long as we live in our heads, we remain married to male values, which prize systems, control, abstraction, reason, and analysis.

Wonderful traits, all, but utterly incapable of either feeling or creating wholeness. The cultural adoration we heap upon reason blinds us to its complete impotence in this regard: however hard you might try, you cannot reason your way into the present.

To drop out of the head and into the body though — and even more to the point, to allow your consciousness to descend through the body and come to rest on the pelvic floor — is to come to rest in the genius of your conscious being. And although “your conscious being” may be defined in many ways, here’s how I understand it: your being is what you discover when you are fully present. To come fully into being is to come fully into relationship with the world around you. It is also, interestingly, to recognize the present as a mindful whole.

Because we live in our heads, we largely experience things that way: the penthouse of the body is what actually creates the subject/ object relationship we have with the world. By contrast, dropping down to the ground of our being — the pelvic floor — awakens our sensitivities to a mindful continuum, a dynamic field of transforming interrelationships.

And that brings us to the two very different ways by which the male aspect of our consciousness and the female aspect come to know the world. The differences are best understood by looking at the differences between digital information and analog information. A digital recording breaks music into billions of static samples (44,100 per second), each of which is converted into a binary number. When the iPod interprets those binary numbers and plays all the samples together, we hear a convincing duplicate of the original music. An LP, by contrast, has a groove that is shaped by the original waveforms of the music; when the needle of a turntable follows that groove, those waveforms compress the needle and are eventually heard as sound. In the analog recording there is no interpretation, there are no frozen samples, there are no discontinuities. There is just the sound wave, sculpted in vinyl, ready to express itself as music.

In applying this metaphor to the two aspects of our consciousness, we can see that the male aspect freezes the energy of the world into ideas, and systemizes those ideas into a reasonable duplicate of reality. You can look at a tree, and recognize what it is by applying the label “tree” to it, without ever drinking in its particularity.

You can do the same thing with every feature of the world around you. Our analog intelligence is very different: All of our senses are informed by analog impression rather than measurement: the world’s energy presses upon them, as the pressure of a door handle upon the palm of our hand.

And much as a stylus is informed by the waveforms in a record groove, our senses are informed about the energy of the world by vibrations: the eye sees waves of light, the ear hears vibrations, and we feel heat and cold, wind and texture, all as vibrations. Similarly, the consciousness that joins self and world is analog, and the energetic potential for exchange between them might be named the analog axis.

In the way that analog audio technology leans on the vibrating source — the music — and enables its waveform to shape the groove in the LP, the analog axis allows our sensitivities to lean on the One Source — the present — and receive the impression of all the subtle waveforms of Being. Taken together, those waveforms, those currents of exchange, are the one reality.

The choice we face, then, as both artists and citizens of the world, is either remaining in the head, which puts us into relationship primarily with our own ideas and shoulds and expectations of the world; or dropping into the pelvic bowl, and coming to rest in its stillness, and thereby coming into relationship with all that is. To come into relationship with the whole is to feel the guidance of the whole — and then you are truly “in the zone,” being danced by the world.

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(Excerpts are from the author’s book, New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in the Twenty-first Century) conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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Ph o to : Josep h Sei f

For those who soar to great heights or dive deep into the waters of dance, the boundaries of space and time warp with the thrill of danger. Cutting-edge performers require nerves of steel to navigate the creative limits of aerial or underwater dance. Here’s a glimpse into the creative consciousness of a few of the stars beyond the stage.

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as above, so below

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main Photo: Ken pao / inset left: Joseph Seif / inset right: courtesy gypsy roze

main Photo: Todd Laby / inset photo: Atossa Soltani

www.capacitor.org www.aerialacrobatentertainment.com www.gypsyroze.com www.projectbandaloop.org

Capacitor (featuring performer Elliott Gittelsohn on opening spread and facing page), brainchild of environmental theorist and dancer Jodi Lomask, merges art, science, and movement in staged and natural site-specific environments around the world. Capacitor’s Okeanos, an ocean-themed sensory immersion, opens at Fort Mason in San Francisco in April 2012. Aerial Acrobat Entertainment (facing page) is led by the internationally recognized Guinevere DiPiazza. Isis Vision (opposite lower right), created by Alicia Marie, combines “conscious art and performance” with permaculture projects, most recently seen at Burning Man 2011 with their stellar zipline installation. Project Bandaloop (this page), headed by visionary dancer Amelia Rudolph, has put a new slant on performance since 1991, blending art and nature with spectacle and sheer physicality. conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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Ruth St. Denis

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Martha Graham

ruth st. denis: www.britannica.com / martha graham: www.estrip. org/articles/read/tinypliny/54259/Who-was-Martha-Graham-.html

Making Contact

looking at the roots of improvisation

Long before there were jams and camps, the international dance landscape was guided by brilliant figures towards a culture of possibility. Contributing editor Elana Silverman explains some of the connections and lineage that led up to the cultural atmosphere in which Contact Improvisation was born. We are also delighted to complement this historical look back with an account of the evolution of CI from Nancy Stark Smith, Contact Quarterly founder and movement pioneer.

Dancing Troublemakers

merce cunningham: courtesy of Merce Cunningham Dance Company

by elana silverman

Merce Cunningham

When Isadora Duncan ditched her ballet shoes and corset to don Grecian gowns and embody the movements of nature in the early 1900s, she set a precedent for the rest of the century. Duncan’s soft tunics, bare feet, and flowing movements challenged her contemporaries’ assumptions about what kind of dance belongs onstage. Before Duncan, classical ballet had dominated the Western proscenium for centuries. After Duncan, breaking away from the form became the norm.

The 20th century saw an endless string of codification and rebellion in which protégés mastered their teachers’ forms, then proceeded to disregard all the rules and create their own style.

Ruth St. Denis came next. Fascinated by the spiritual and movement traditions of Eastern cultures, she created works inspired by her studies of “The Orient.”

Incorporating spirituality, music visualizations, and her studies of Hindu art and philosophy, a typical St. Denis choreography might include shapes and costumes borrowed from classical Indian dance, belly dance, and Flamenco traditions, set on bodies trained in classical ballet.

Though much of St. Denis’ work would now be considered appropriation, as she didn’t thoroughly study many of the forms that inspired her choreography, at the time this fusion style was groundbreaking.

After marrying dancer Ted Shawn in 1914, the couple opened the Denishawn School of Dancing, training artists like Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. Shawn was one of the first to advocate for the place of the male body onstage, founding both the

all-male company “Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers” and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, which still draws the world’s most prominent cutting-edge choreographers to New England each summer.

After studying under Shawn and St. Denis, Denishawn student Martha Graham founded her own school in 1926 and went on to become one of the best-known choreographers of the 20th century. Dramatic and intense, Graham’s choreography expressed inner emotion as a universal human experience, drawing inspiration from sources including myth, American history, psychology, and fine art.

Graham also created a notoriously rigorous technique based in contraction and release that still informs many of the exercises practiced in modern dance classes today.

In contrast, José Limon soon after created a technique explicitly focused on the relationship of the human body to gravity, emphasizing fall and recovery in a looser, floppier style. This technique can

“These innovations set the stage for the anarchy that would follow.” now be found alongside Graham’s influence in many a contemporary dance class.

Meanwhile, Lester Horton developed his own athletic, isolation-heavy style, which would later be adopted by Alvin Ailey and infused with music and movement from the African American community.

When Graham company alum Merce Cunningham began creating his own works in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the rules of the game changed. Together with his

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Harvest: One History of Contact Improvisation by nancy stark smith

Contact Improvisation was created in 1972 by American dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton, who danced in the early 1960s with Merce Cunningham’s company.

During this time, Steve took a composition class with Robert Ellis Dunn that gradually evolved into the Judson Dance Theater.

The Grand Union, an outgrowth of Judson, was a dance / theater / improvisation group that included Steve along with Yvonne Rainer, David Gordon, Trisha Brown, Barbara Dilley, Douglas Dunn, and Nancy Green. The members were 28

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dancers in various companies, but when they performed as the Grand Union, they improvised with no plan, no set choreography.

In 1972, the Grand Union was invited to Oberlin College, where I was a student, for a month-long January residency.

Steve taught a 7 a.m. class called the “Soft Class.” We would come into a beautiful old wooden men’s gymnasium, and there would be a chair at the door with a box of Kleenex and a little plate of cut-up fruit. You took a tissue and a piece of fruit and came into the gym. Steve led us in standing still, the small dance, while we kind of fell asleep and woke up, and also did some yoga-like breathing exercises. Then you’d blow your nose and eat the fruit, and after an hour, the sun came up and that was the end of the class.

I had no idea what we were doing but I was curious and somehow very moved.

Steve got a small travel grant and decided to bring a group together in New York City in June of 1972 to do a performance project. We worked for one week in a loft studio that had a small blue wrestling mat. We practiced a lot of rolling techniques — forward, backward, aikido, invented rolls, handstand-rolldowns — in order to be comfortable falling and rolling in different directions. We’d dance in duets on the mat: we’d try things, explore possibilities while improvising in contact.

After one week of practice, we moved to an art gallery in downtown New York City (the John Weber Gallery), set up the mat and performed for five hours a day for a week. These were the first performances of Contact Improvisation. Steve made a postcard announcement — on the front was a picture of the Coney Island parachute jump, a ride at the amusement park. He also went to Chinatown and had fortune cookies made with a fortune that said something like, “Come to John Weber Gallery — contact improvisations,” and we gave them to everybody in the street.

The nature of this form is that you need a partner to do it, and I think this is one of the most important reasons it has spread. To get a partner, you have to make one; you have to find a way to communicate the form. Many of us tried to share it, to create partners so we could continue to dance. And it started to grow.

Three years later, in 1975, Steve asked if I would tour with him in the Northwest U.S. We joined up with Nita Little and

Curt Siddall from the Weber Gallery performances, and formed a company called Reunion that met every year for a few years to tour the West Coast, teaching classes and giving performances of Contact Improvisation.

Instead of copyrighting the form, we created a newsletter, where everyone who was involved could write about what was going on with them. That was the origin of the Contact Newsletter, in 1975, which is now Contact Quarterly magazine (with a CI newsletter in it).

After the first Reunion tour in 1975, the number of contactors grew considerably. By the late 1970s/early 1980s, several notable contact companies had formed — Mangrove, Contactworks, Catpoto, Fulcrum, Freelance, and others — in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Montreal, Vancouver, and New York, each bringing its own distinctive approach to the body of work.

From the beginning, people asked, “Well, is this dance?” Big question. It came from a dance-art mind and intention. It came at a time in American history, and probably world history, when established roles — of gender, authority, etc.— were being questioned. Part of it was a change in the way dance was made, that it could be made collaboratively. Also you had women lifting men; I didn’t think much about it then, but when we would show the work, people were amazed by things like that — by falling, by being on the floor, or by men being sensitive with each other, women being strong, people being a little bit out of control, and the pure physicality of it.

There’s no set pedagogy or certified way to teach contact. Because of this freedom, people have created a lot of teaching material — principles, exercises, language, scores, formats. I think the jam model came from Steve’s experience with the martial arts and the dojo mentality of people at different levels training together.

The Breitenbush Jam in Oregon was one of the first retreat jams, at a beautiful, remote hot springs. After a few years, another jam started at the Harbin Hot Springs in California. Next came an East Coast Jam and then festivals started and facilities (like Arlequi in Spain and Earthdance in Massachusetts) began to offer regular CI workshops and events.

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Excerpts from Harvest: One History of Contact Improvisation, a talk given by Nancy Stark Smith at the Freiburg Contact Festival in 2005, published in Contact Quarterly, Vol. 31#2, Summer/Fall 2006. For more information, visit nancystarksmith.com or contactquarterly.com.

Photo: Raisa Kyllikki Karjalainen

life and artistic partner, musician John Cage, Cunningham ditched the narrative choreographic form, challenging dance’s relationship to music, space, art and architecture, and technology. Cunningham and Cage set choreography to the music of chairs scraping and audience members clearing their throats, or created a choreographic and musical score based purely on chance. These innovations set the stage for the anarchy that would follow.

In the early 1960s, a Cunningham and Cage collaborator named Robert Dunn began teaching a composition class to a group of visual artists, musicians, and dancers at Cunningham’s studio in New York City. In July of 1962, this group performed its first concert on the gym floor of the Judson Church in Greenwich Village. This “post-modern” group extolled form over content, exploring improvisation, structure, natural and pedestrian movements, breath, stillness and silence, and countless other themes that had been largely excluded from modern dance. Artists affiliated with the Judson Church Theater went on to create new elements of modern dance; these innovators included Steve Paxton (Contact Improvisation), Trisha Brown (site-specific dance), Meredith Monk (multi-disciplinary performance art), and Anna Halprin (dance art therapy). This group shattered any lingering illusions that American modern dance could be easily defined or recognized. At the same time, they introduced themes and innovations that opened doors to ecstatic dance, fusion forms, 5Rhythms, Nia, and much of today’s vibrant dance culture.

Nancy Stark Smith

“It came at a time in American history, and probably world history, when established roles — of gender, authority, etc. — were being questioned.”

vitality

Step Up! The joy of giving extends far beyond the dance floor.

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oving beyond the traditional “season of giving,” Conscious Dancer readers shared their thoughts and news about year-round generosity in our dance communities. From New York to Missouri to California, dancers told us about reaching out in every season—by sharing food and drink, offering kindness, and dancing for a gentler, more sustainable world. Following is a sampling of ideas and inspirations on movement, connection, and generosity.

At Soul Sanctuary Dance in Berkeley, California, the plate of shared fruit at closing circle completes the experience for Wowlvenn Seward-Katzmiller, whose three-year-old daughter, Elka Rose, eagerly awaits the apples or grapes and the fun of passing the plate around. “We all arrive with our different lives, but after the dance you also have the common experience of the space and the dance that you’re ingesting and sharing,” says Seward-Katzmiller. At a time when even a family dinner can be 30

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hard to schedule, she notes that the closing circle marks people coming together and honors the collective experience as well as the generosity of the person who provided the snack.

Heather Munro Pierce, who leads TransDance® workshops, circles, and retreats, often hosts a potluck meal as part of a dance series. “For me, it’s natural after exerting and expressing physically through dance to nourish and replenish together,” says Pierce. Sometimes she also creates a more ritualized sharing of food. After preparing the meal together, the group ritually offers a plate of food to each person, creating a heightened awareness of the meal as nourishment and of the body as a temple. “Just as there’s a magic in dancing together,” says Pierce, “the act of breaking bread together is a sacred act.”

Dancer Adrienne Lojeck, who studies improvisation at Stony Brook University, follows a path of generosity by carefully considering the nourishment that she shares

after dancing with fellow students. “The best way to ensure that I am ‘manifesting generosity’ after dance class,” says Lojeck, “is by sharing only things that are positive, generate light, and uplift the soul. That goes for food, and words. So, when I peel my post-dance-class orange, and offer some wedges to my classmates, or pass out some extra coconut waters, I am sharing food that is energizing and healthy. Similarly, when I smile at my classmates and say, ‘great breakthroughs today’ or ‘wasn’t that the best?’ or even when I just allow blissful silence as we all towel off the sweat and change back into our street clothes, I am giving in a generous spirit. Dance is selfnurturing, and so anything that is shared after class, food or words, should continue to support that nourishment.”

Generous acts start at home for members of Gateway Nia, a community of Nia teachers in the heartland of St. Louis and Metro East. This group welcomes new members into their community with a gift when they

Photo: flickr – Mikaela

by Rachel Trachten

Photo: dara merin

receive their Nia White Belts. As members continue their Nia journey they receive beltspecific gifts to mark these milestones. “It has been a beautiful way for us to recognize and celebrate one another,” says Black Belt instructor Tracy Stamper.

About five years ago, Stamper was moved to expand on this idea and the “Gateway Nia Love Fund$” were born. The group collects voluntary donations from its members, and uses these funds to support their sister teachers when the need arises. “For example,” says Stamper, “we’ve delivered flowers and a teddy bear to a local Nia instructor as she returned home from surgery, sent love and sunshine through flowers to a member who lost a parent, and launched a card campaign (all of us sent cards of support on the same day) to another teacher who was going through a rough time. It has been a beautiful way to support one another not just professionally, but also personally in community.”

Dance performance artist Susan Osberg uses her dance talents in support of the environment. Osberg is making a sitespecific piece, Tree, as part of a Kickstarter fundraiser for Hiddenbrooke, a preserve of springs, woods, fields, and wildlife that has become a public space for the city of Beacon, New York.

For members of the Dancing Lotus Center in Helena, Montana, reaching out means going far beyond their own community. Leaders Kathryn Kelley and Kelly Baraby host Nia/Yoga Saturdays throughout the year to raise funds for local and international organizations. (An hour of energizing Nia is followed by an hour of gentle, restorative yoga.) People make donations and share in the dance and community. The group has raised funds for Haiti, Partners in Health, Food Share, March of Dimes, Montana Shares, Truth in Progress, and others. “Creating these events to benefit helping organizations or individuals in need,” says Kelley, “helps us bring together a community of like-hearted folks who believe that raising awareness through dance and energy connection is one way to heal the world and bring people together with love.”

Inspired by dancers from around the globe, the attitudes that develop on community dance floors foster a culture of contribution. While holidays and special occasions surely encourage sharing, dancers are finding myriad ways to tap into the spirit of generosity year round.

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Simple and Sublime, A Salad for Every Potluck This time of year, there are many opportunities for sharing meals, whether it’s a casual potluck or a special celebration. Sharing food that we’ve prepared ourselves is a meaningful way to connect and nourish our bodies, minds, and relationships. The recipe below has a few steps, but is not difficult, and you’ll be rewarded for your efforts.

Farro is a grain related to wheat that has been enjoyed since ancient times. It’s high in fiber, protein, and nutrients, non-GMO, and absolutely delicious—nutty, full-flavored, and with an appealingly chewy texture. For a gluten-free version, substitute 1 cup brown rice or a mixture of brown and wild rice. This is a great salad to bring to a potluck or a holiday dinner—it’s just as scrumptious at room temperature as it is warm. Serves 4 to 6. tossed farro with butternut squash, herbs, and walnuts

1½ to 2 cu p s p e e l e d a n d c h o p p e d b u t t e r n u t s q u a s h * ¼ c up ex t r a v i rg i n o l i v e o i l , p l u s 2 t a b l e s p o o n s 1½ c ups f a r ro o r o t h e r g r a i n ⅓ c up c h o p p e d w a l n u t s o r p e c a n s 1 s m a l l to m e d i u m re d o n i o n , c h o p p e d s m a l l 2 ta bl es p o o n s c h o p p e d t h y m e , ro s e m a r y, a n d / o r s a g e 2 ta bl es p o o n s b a l s a m i c v i n e g a r 2 or more t a b l e s p o o n s re d w i n e v i n e g a r ¼ c up dri e d c h e r r i e s o r c u r r a n t s , o p t i o n a l s ea s a l t a n d f re s h g ro u n d p e p p e r t o t a s t e

Toss the butternut squash in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, spread in a single layer on a sheet pan, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a 425 degree oven until tender and golden, then set aside. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees. Add the grain to a pot with water to cover. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook until tender. Drain in a colander, put in a bowl, and set aside. Spread the chopped nuts out on a sheet pan in the oven, and toast until just turning golden, about 5 to 7 minutes. Set aside.

Cook the onion in 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat until it has just turned translucent and perhaps a bit golden. Add to the bowl with the cooked grain. Also add the rest of the olive oil, the herbs, walnuts, vinegars, dried fruit if using, and the nuts. Season with salt and generous grindings of freshly ground pepper, then toss well. Gently stir in the butternut squash, and then taste again for seasoning. Add more salt or red wine vinegar to make the flavors really pop, then serve warm or at room temperature. *note: To prepare the squash, first cut off the stem end and the very bottom of the squash. Use a sharp vegetable peeler to peel the skin off, then carefully cut it in half vertically. Scoop out the seeds and then chop. The more evenly you cut the pieces, the more evenly they will cook.

Recipe by nutrition consultant and culinary instructor Dara Merin, who teaches cooking classes in Oakland, California. www.thesagetable.com conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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sounds

Reverence and Resonance

Sacred music evokes a high vibration among fans and musicians alike.

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ance and Music, supreme partners in the song of life, go all the way back in time, and will take us through the journey. Like Shiva and Shakti and the eternal dance of energy and consciousness, the union of reverence and resonance is discovered over and over when we are engaged in mindful movement.

Accessing the doorways into which these worlds meet can be accentuated by tuning in to both reverence and resonance. In the world of music, resonance is an amplification of a sound. It may be that of an instrument or the human voice, caused by sympathetic vibration in a chamber such as an auditorium or a singer’s chest. In dance, this experience of resonance is enhanced simply by proximity to another person, sound, vibration, or attentive noticing of

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vibration from another source at or near its own natural frequency. Just as dance is the path upon which many of us move through life, there is much to experience when we really listen to music: drama, tension, balance, pathos, ecstasy—all the elements that make dance and music as potent as they are.

Reverence is the feeling that makes an experience sacred, and music can magnify this experience. Reverence works hand in hand with the resonance that occurs when we go beyond surface meaning through increased awareness. This gives rise to feelings of deep respect or devotion. Perhaps this is why when we exert ourselves, sweat, and move beyond our edges, we feel closer to, if not enveloped by, a Higher Source. To then remember that this energy is always there and is inside rather than

outside of us unites this whole. Whether the awareness of reverence is triggered or generated through other persons, in nature, or simply in the unwinding and release of our own tensions is not important. Applying genuine curiosity to find out what lies beyond our patterned thinking and behavior—even how we move and listen—is the key to this exploration.

I recently spoke with Sean Johnson, who had come with his Wild Lotus Band from New Orleans to the Bay Area where I live.

He reflected on creating reverence as a musician: “To build an altar and light candles enhances the devotional atmosphere and brings the reverence from within. What I love about playing music, especially kirtan, is that there is a personal experience as well as sharing it with the group. By tuning in to all of this, the resonance happens, and

Photo: Abhimanyu Sabnis

by Lloyd Barde

“To build an altar and light candles enhances the devotional atmosphere and brings the reverence from within. What I love about playing music, especially kirtan,is that there is a personal experience as well as sharing it with the group.” time to ancient shamanistic rituals. Music, as a tool of healing, was recognized in the writings of Pythagoras, Aristotle, and Plato as a positive influence on physical, emotional, cognitive, and social well-being.

When the music is dancing your soul, and the dance sings to you from the soles of your feet, the one pointed stillness, or bindu, that is written about in ancient texts and scriptures becomes palpable and real.

In yoga, the word bindu refers to the stage in meditation where all one’s experiences converge into a point and expand into pure awareness. Perhaps you have had that ecstatic experience rise freely as you have danced to music that aligns itself with your own unique resonance. In the space of reverence, listening can deepen, the spirit can soar, and the embodied dancer can freely fly as never before.

.

Photo: keith kelly

it is authentic when both are held equally.”

Asked about his personal experience of leading these events, he said, “Holding the awareness of going deeper in myself, yet guiding the group by feeding the energy is the surrender.”

The power of the group and the space also creates its own form of reverence. At Barefoot Boogie in Berkeley, California, one of the founders had been going through some serious health issues. When she was finally able to return to her sacred community dance space, she shared her experience: “It was one of the reasons I went dancing (even though I basically just stood at the middle of the dance floor).

The human connection is just as healing as the pills and treatment that's ahead of me. I felt completely safe surrounded by all the dancing bodies, taking in the love and support!”

Many studies have validated this kind of experience by showing the deeper benefits of listening to and playing music. The growing field of music therapy is presenting increasing evidence that points toward the greater powers of music. By common observation, professional medical practitioners have linked music to our well-being and general health. A recent study by The NAMM Foundation, whose mission is to advance active participation in music making across the lifespan, concludes that listening to music has positive health effects on people of all ages. The therapeutic benefits of music can be traced back in

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Greater Bay Area

CLASSES & SWEAT YOUR PRAYERS

WORKSHOPS

MON

7 – 9:30pm

5Rhythms Mountain View (Claire Alexander)

Write of Passage: A morning rhythm & writing group January 24-May 15, every other Tuesday movingcenterschool.com

TUES

The 5Rhythms practice is a physical, emotional and spiritual curriculum that systematically leads us all back to our original aliveness.

6:30 – 8:30pm 7 – 8:30pm

Waves of Awakening (Stacey Butcher & Davida Taurek) Sweat Your Prayers (Jennifer Burner)

SUN

THUR

WED

contact teacher for exact location

7 – 9pm

Waves Journey (Sylvie Minot)

7 – 9pm

Almost Weekly Practice (Claire Alexander)

Mountain View

Mill Valley Santa Rosa

Sausalito Santa Cruz

(no class on the 1st Wednesday of the month)

7 – 9pm

Awakening In Motion (Saša Bencina ˇ )

Monterey

10:15am – 12:15pm

Moving Meditation Class Series

Mill Valley

(Kathy Altman & Lori Saltzman)

6:30 – 8:30pm

Winter Series Drop-In (Bella)

6:30 – 8:30pm

Embodied Waves (Stacey Butcher & Charlie Korda)

7 – 9pm

Sweat Your Prayers (David Taurek)

10 – Noon

Sweat Your Prayers (Bella & Guest Teachers)

Sacramento San Francisco San Geronimo

Sacramento

Waves: Being Danced January 27-29, 2012 esalen.org

with Lori Saltzman Mill Valley, CA 9-11:30am

with Andrea Juhan Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA

Heartbeat: Ferocious Heart February 3-5, 2012 movinground.com

with Andrea Juhan Los Angeles, CA

Waves: Feet First February 3-5, 2012 pinklotusmovementcafe.com

with Claire Alexander Minneapolis, MN

Heartbeat: Living HeartFully March 2-4, 2012 ecstaticproductions.com

with Claire Alexander Santa Cruz, CA

Equanimity: Opening and Closing March 3, 2012 movingcenterschool.com

with Lori Saltzman Mill Valley, CA

Waves: Light & Shadow March 23-25, 2012 bodyjoy.net

with Kathy Altman Sacramento, CA

Cycles: The Heart’s Expansion March 29 - April 1, 2012 ecstaticproductions.com

with Andrea Juhan Mountain View, CA

“Movement practice is all about uncovering long suppressed instincts. It trains you to see with your third eye and listen with your third ear. In testy moments, we need a practice, something to fall back on, a pipeline to our inner truth, or we will find ourselves helpless, surrendering to the will of our heads, not our guts.” – Gabrielle Roth

CONTACTS Andrea Juhan Big Sur openfloor.org 831.406.1603

Claire Alexander Mountain View & Santa Cruz ecstaticproductions.com 408.829.7366

Kathy Altman & Lori Saltzman Mill Valley - Sausalito - San Rafael movingcenterschool.com 415.887.9399

Stacey Butcher Mill Valley & San Francisco staceybutcher.com 415.755.7905

Bella Dreizler Sacramento bodyjoy.net 916.267.5478

Davida Taurek Mill Valley & San Geronimo davidadance.com 5RhythmsWavesofAwakening.com 415.455.8981

Saša Bencina ˇ Monterey www.somatichealingarts.org 415.987.7662

Sylvie Minot Sausalito syzygydanceproject.com 415.272.1896

Charlie Korda San Francisco 5rhythmssanfrancisco.com 707.295.5841

Jennifer Burner Santa Rosa elementsofmovement.vpweb.com 415.200.7559

35 Education 36 Events & Performances 37 Festivals 38 Retreats & Workshops

42 Book Reviews 44 DVD Review 44 MixMasters Top 10 46 Results

Movement Menu

Visit www.ConsciousDancer.com for the global directory, and sign up for the monthly eZine!

winter highlights education Vital Development Esalen Work Study Month

JourneyDance Module 1: Five-Day Intensive Teacher Training

DEC 25–JAN 22 • Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA Are you ready to unfurl your soul from its chrysalis and take flight? Join Jaquelin Levin-Zabare for a 28-day immersion in Esalen’s integrative approach to personal and social development. The program will offer a rigorous course of Vital Development Biodanza. It will be a rich and challenging opportunity to embody the idea that mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and social dimensions of the self are inextricably connected. The fusion of music, emotion, voice work, creativity, ceremony, and community, explored through movement, our most primal form of expression, is vital in this group process to evoke a higher consciousness grounded in peace, pleasure, kindness, joy, self-confidence, and well-being. www.biodanza-dancesoflife.com

JAN 18–23 • San Antonio, TX An exciting opportunity to work with Toni Bergins, creator of JourneyDance, at The Synergy Studio.

This training is meant for everyone who loves to dance including yoga teachers, dance instructors, and movement therapists. Take a powerful and transformative journey: dance your fiery rhythmic beats. Rise and fall in waves of melodic passionate pulsation. Dive into the ocean of your emotions.

Inspire your heart to lead you and share its secrets.

Feel your aliveness! www.thesynergystudio.com

Learn Danyasa with Sofiah Thom - pg. 36

BUTI Level 1 Teacher Certification

photos from top: Michael Julian Berz, Brandon Jaffers, J. Forrest, Courtesy Biodanza, M. Metz.

American Dance Festival January Intensive DEC 30–JAN 9 • New York, NY Have you considered making NYC your dance home?

The American Dance Festival (ADF) January Intensive offers nine days of classes, panels, performances, and more. Study with outstanding teachers, learn in a supportive environment that offers individualized attention, hear about the NY dance scene from the artists who define it, and watch open rehearsals and performances. Past faculty include Robert Battle, Trisha Brown, David Dorfman, Eiko and Koma, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Meredith Monk, Lisa Race, Shen Wei, and Doug Varone. www.americandancefestival.org

Kundalini Hoop Dance Telecourse JAN 4–FEB 22 Join Kundalini Hoop Dance in a journey dedicated to your personal growth and empowerment through discovery of your self, activation of your chakras, and cultivation of your power to transform with the hoop! This series will include: eight 1.5-hour teleclass conference calls; a copy of our publication Primordial Spin-Inter-Galactivation Guidebook; a series of online videos guiding you through the mudras, tones, and affirmations for each chakra; a one-hour phone consultation with Kandice; a holistic practice hoop of your choice; and continued email support throughout the program and beyond. www.kundalinihoopdance.com

Get fresh at the Raw Spirit Festival - pg. 36

JAN 20–22 • Denver, CO BUTI is a fusion of power yoga, dance, and plyometrics that seamlessly connects yoga poses to plyometric circuits and BUTI shaking cardio.

Although BUTI utilizes a variety of dance styles, no choreography is used. This teacher training will include BUTI Basics, Structuring Your Class, Anatomy and Injury Prevention, Fitness and Endurance Test, as well as marketing your BUTI classes. Throughout the BUTI classes, attention is paid to stretching each muscle group worked to achieve faster recovery time.

Each workout is finished with a yoga-based restorative practice and a five-minute savasana meditation. www.butiyoga.com

Introduction to Anatomy and Kinesiology Take flight with Biodanza - pg. 35

Beach learning at Blue Spirit - pg. 38

MAR 3–4 • New York, NY As part of the two-day introductory workshop series, students will explore the skeletal-muscular system experientially through functional and expressive movement, activation of the subjective body, group discussion, and hands-on work with Anastasi Siota.

This workshop is required for entry into the LIMS® Certification Program in Laban Movement Studies.

Laban Movement Analysis provides a comprehensive vocabulary and analytic framework for the description of human movement. Using LMA, one can systematically look at a unit or phrase of movement in terms of the four major movement components: Body, Effort, Shape, and Space. These basic components can be identified and examined alone and in relationship to each other. www.limsonline.org conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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EDUCATION CONTINUED 200-Hour Danyasa® Inspired Yoga Teacher Training For Living Artfully MAR 9–30 • Dominical, Costa Rica The pristine beaches and jungles of Costa Rica provide the backdrop for a transformative life-enhancing experience—an immersion into yoga and embodiment as a way of life.This unique teacher training with Sofiah Thom, Larry Thraen, and Shawn Roop provides a solid foundation in the fundamentals of hatha yoga, tantra yoga, and vinyasa yoga, fused with principles of expressive

the inherent goodness that life has to offer. Master Baptiste teachers Claire Este-McDonald and Gregor Singleton bring more than 25 combined years of daily classroom teaching at the successful Baptiste studios in Massachusetts. www.kripalu.org

Dervish Sufi Turn Classes 2nd and 4th Sundays • Portland, OR “A secret turning in us makes the universe turn. Head unaware of feet, and feet head. Neither cares. They keep turning.” - Rumi. The Portland Mevlevi Order of America will be offering whirling dervish turn classes

the old year and a blessed beginning of the new one. (Tuesday evening–Sunday afternoon) www.earthdance.net

A New Year 5Rhythms® Gathering DEC 28–JAN 2 • Findhorn, Scotland Held in the Universal Hall Arts Center in the Findhorn EcoVillage Community, this gathering is open to everyone. Located in Northeast Scotland, the Findhorn community is a major international center for personal and spiritual transformation and sustainable living. It is situated on a two-mile peninsula among sand dunes, woodland, and beautiful beaches. Deborah Jay-Lewin and Adam Barley, who first met in 1994 training with Gabrielle Roth, will bring a wealth of experience as leaders of this celebration. Ample time will be provided for dancing with and without music, shared bodywork, daily taught classes, Sweat Your Prayers®, use of the hot tub, and a late night Hogmanay Party! www.bodysurfscotland.co.uk

Eve of New Year’s Eve 11th Annual Blacklight & White Ball DEC 30 • Fairfax, CA This end-of-year celebration provides a welcome alternative to traditional New Year’s Eve gatherings.

Always held on the 30th of December, the ball takes place in a beautifully transformed environment, awash in the hues of blacklight and sparkles, on a feet-friendly hardwood floor. Dancers arrive dressed in the theme of all-white attire as DJs Dragonfly and Kaminanda spin massive global grooves on an impressively large sound system. At midnight, Suzanne Sterling leads the revelry through the traditional rite of an ecstatic spiral dance. www.thegroovegarden.com

healing arts, contemplative movement practice, and somatic psychology. Learn new flow sequences and philosophies for combining yoga with expressive dance, become initiated into the tools for guiding students in the arts of a life well lived, bridging heaven and earth as one in this unique creative exploration. www.bambooyogaplay.com

to both new and experienced students. These classes are open to the public and are an opportunity to experience the spiritual practices in the tradition of the poet and Sufi spiritual leader Hz. Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi. Turn classes will include poetry, wazifas (chanting), and learning the techniques of the turn and the symbolism of the practice. www.hayatidede.org

Nia Blue Belt Training

Hawthorne Laughter Club

MAR 17–23 • Honolulu, HI Dance off the winter in gorgeous Hawaii and bloom as a Nia teacher this March. Debbie Rosas, co-creator and founder of Nia, and Winalee Zeeb, Black Belt, will be teaching the Nia Blue Belt Training in Honolulu. Open to all White Belt graduates, this seven-day experience is all about communication, relationship, and intimacy. The training will take place at the stunning Still & Moving Center, Oahu’s most comprehensive mind-body movement center offering aerial yoga, hula, conscious dance, massage, and more. Train with the top Nia teachers and then dive into the warm, tropical waves of Aloha! www.nianow.com

Every Sunday 4 to 4:50 PM • Portland, OR LY (Laughter Yoga) is a mind-body exercise system that combines playfulness and unconditional laughter with Pranayama and other movement disciplines. A Laughter Yoga session supports the achievement of sustained hearty laughter without jokes. Be ready to use whole-body movement while vocalizing.

Group leader Laura Lou Pape-McCarthy, CLYL, has a background in circus clowning, acrobatics, and group fitness. Explore range of movement, practice awareness of size and emotional content of physicality. www.1laughatatimeonline.com

Live Your Yoga, Teach Your Yoga MAR 18–23 • Kripalu Center, Stockbridge, MA This training for all yoga teachers gives you confidence in your innate magnetism as a teacher and human being and your ability to communicate the ancient practices of yoga as accessible experiences for students of all levels. Through teaching and direct feedback, you gain the skills and understanding needed to teach a daily yoga practice that leaves students empowered, inspired, and connected to

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EVENTS & PERFORMANCES The New Year’s Jam: Celebrate DEC 27–JAN 1 • Earthdance, Plainfield, MA Earthdance’s biggest Contact Improvisation event of the year! What better way to let go of holiday stress and ring in the New Year than to dance till the wee hours? Frosty air, a ritual bonfire, twinkling winter stars, and plenty of warm bodies on the dance floor.

Every year it is a special event, co-created by the people who attend. Come imagine a magical end of

New Year’s Dance Revelry at Harbin Hot Springs DEC 30–JAN 2 • Middletown, CA Gather with a community of movers and mystics to dance in the New Year. Let your heart unravel in soulful reflection and playful celebration on land and in water. This three-day weekend is an opportunity to dive deep into the unabashed expression of your self. There will be DJs and dancing each night and morning. You will be able to dance with dolphins in a private pool with underwater music and to practice Contact Improvisation on water and land. You will have plenty of free time to soak, flow, schmooze, connect, and let your silliness, depth, and bliss arise! www.lunabaron.com

Raw Spirit New Year’s Festival DEC 30–Jan 1 • Phoenix, AZ Billed as “the world’s leading, largest, and longestlived raw vegan-eco-peace celebration,” the Raw Spirit Festival will celebrate the New Year in Phoenix.

With a theme of Inspiration, Education, Meditation, and Celebration, participants can expect to have plenty of fun while learning the latest about health, eco, and spiritual living via dynamic presentations and musical performances, including educational sessions by an eclectic array of doctors and authors. Held at Phoenix’s most magnificent five-star resort, the JW Marriott Desert Ridge, in the Wildflower Ballroom.

Pre-registration is recommended and tickets are limited. www.rawspirit.com or info@rawspirit.com

Luminous Conscious New Year’s Eve DEC 31 • Chicago, IL As time transitions, Luminous New Year’s Eve is Chicago’s conscious celebration. Held at Temple Synphorium, where three intimate rooms provide body-movement opportunities. Onederland presents belly dance and acroyoga plus dream-motion and body-temple dance music; Eden provides freestyle

photo: courtesy bali spirit fest

The beauty of Bali beckons with dance, music, and yoga at the Bali Spirit Festival. pg. 38

Join Winalee Zeeb and Debbie Rosas for a Nia Earn your Nia Blue Belt with Blue Belt training at the Debbie Rosas and Winalee new Still & Moving Center Zeeb at the new Still & Moving in Honolulu. pg. 36 Center in Honolulu. pg. 38

uptempo funk and EBM; Karma Lounge offers hoop/ flag/poi spinning, plus freestyle dancing to the extended drum circle; all this followed by yoga/Tai Chi via live sitar music. Other rooms provide healing and bodywork.

Luminous is a “chosen family” of open-hearted, bodyaware, non-intoxicated spirits. We gather under the common umbrella of life-positive peace and bliss. www.LuminousNYEve.com

Timbavati New Year’s Celebration: OASIS DEC 31 • Santa Cruz, CA Do you want more movement, beauty, community, intimacy, and expansion in your celebration? This New Year’s Eve in Santa Cruz will be the third annual Timbavati New Year’s Celebration. Timbavati is Zulu for “the place where a star falls.” This year will include a dance jam with Baron von Spirit from Mass Transit Dance, spoken word with sacred slam poetess Jasmine Schlafke, tantric healing ring with Datta Khalsa, a kung fu ceremonial tea service, and late night guided meditation with Laura Bishop. www.timbavati.info

AXIS Dance Company JAN 23–29 • Miami Beach, FL Prepare to leave all your preconceptions at the door.

AXIS Dance Company based in Oakland, California, is one of the world’s most acclaimed and innovative ensembles, combining performers with and without disabilities. AXIS will change the way you think about dance and the possibilities of the human body forever. The company will be in residency in Florida as a part of danceAble, an event co-presented by Florida Dance Association and Tigertail Productions, Inc. The company will perform on Saturday, January 28, as a part of danceAble that takes place within the Florida Dance Association WinterFest. www.axisdance.org/performance.php

photo: marta czajkowska

David Dorfman Dance Prophets of Funk JAN 24–29 • Joyce Theater, New York, NY Heralded by the Boston Globe for its “exuberant, gorgeous, and delightfully oddball style,” David Dorfman Dance returns to The Joyce with Prophets of Funk, a work that reinvigorates “boomer memories to the sounds of Sly and the Family Stone” (Boston Phoenix). “A celebration of the band’s groundbreaking, visceral and political music, a tribute to the ‘funk’ of everyday people, the piece leaves everyone dancing in their seats, except for those choosing to join the performers on stage,” says the choreographer. www.daviddorfmandance.org

Texas Yoga Conference FEB 17–19 • Houston, TX The third annual Texas Yoga Conference at the University of Houston’s Recreation and Wellness Center will offer space for yoga students, teachers, and organizations of diverse lineages to come together and share their love of yoga. This year’s lineup includes a book signing with Miao Tsan and a Desert Dwellers concert, as well as programs like Yoga: Eliminating Difference and Celebrating Oneness, The Yoga Approach to Relationships, Ancient and Modern Yoga in Conversation, Rocking the Sacred Heart Yoga, and Teaching Consciousness and Asanas to Beginners. www.texasyogaconference.com

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company FEB 24–25 • Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, CA Bill T. Jones—whose major honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Award, the Kennedy Center Honor, and a Tony Award for Best Choreography for the Broadway hit FELA!—returns to Zellerbach Hall to perform a thrilling new multidisciplinary work. Jones’s inventive choreography will accompany a cascade of poignant short stories drawn from his life, as narrated

by Jones himself from the stage. Original music and film will create the environment for Jones’s charismatic performance presence and his unique company of dancers, now in its 29th year. “One of the glories of American dance” (San Francisco Chronicle). www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/performances

New York Dance Parade 2012 May 19 • New York, NY Shake, tango, jeté, or leap your way down Broadway and be part of history at New York’s sixth annual Dance Parade. Last year’s parade showcased over 9,000 dancers in 74 forms of dance, sharing the “stage” with grand marshals Charles Reinhart (American Dance Festival president), Joseph Harrington (star of Billy Elliot), and Kat Wildish (legendary ballet educator). Registration for Dance Parade 2012 is now open to both dance groups and individuals. www.danceparade.org

FESTIVALS 3rd Coast Tribal Dance Festival JAN 5–8 • Fort Worth, TX The biggest belly dance festival in the central United States will take place at The Rose Marin

Theater. This festival will feature hosts Urban Gypsy, Houston’s premiere Tribal Style Dance troupe, and groups/instructors including Olivia Kissel, Anahata, BellaNaTana, Drishti Dancers, Deb Rubin, Donna, Mejia, Trybe Habibi Bizarre, April Rose, Silvia Salamanca, Zoe Jakes, and James Hazlerig. There will be various workshops, lecture discussions, and classes like Clarifying Technique: The Art of Refinement and Physical Integrity; Musicality for Belly Dancers; Infinite Innerspace: Extracting Inspiration from All Places; Feast of Fusion; and Dance Like a Goddess: Group Hypnosis. www.3rdcoasttribal.us

Tribal Spirit: International 5Rhythms Gathering

Jan 20–30 • Maui, HI Come experience 10 days of dancing magic on the beautiful island of Maui. This is the third annual Tribal Spirit and the tradition is growing! Gathering teachers and dancers from all over the world, Tribal Spirit celebrates the WE that is changing the world through conscious movement. January 20–22 is the weekend Tribal Gathering with eight teachers of 5Rhythms holding the container for us to celebrate our love of dance with all the flavors and spice of our different cultures and shared language. Spend a few days enjoying the wonders of Maui and then dive into Spirit Body, a five-day retreat on January 25–29 with Amara Pagano. End the whole experience with an intimate day with the humpback whales on January 30. www.amarapagano.com

Alabama Dance Festival JAN 20–31 • Birmingham, AL The Alabama Dance Festival showcases the diverse talent and excellence of dance throughout Alabama, brings the dance community together to promote good will and networking, and provides high quality classes in technique, dance education, and choreography. The festival features workshops, master classes, dance showcases, and free community dance classes.This year performances will include featured companies Ron K. Brown’s Evidence and Augusto Soledade’s Brazz Dance Theater. www.alabamadancecouncil.org

River Festival JAN 21–28 • Costa Rica The annual River Festival happens after deep healing work in the Air Transformation Cycle and the profound December Silent Retreat. Participants

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WE LOVE OUR ADVERTISERS!

FESTIVALS CONTINUED

AlivEmotion page 43

Ma dro n a M i n d B o d y

Antioch University page 3

Mass Transit Dance page 46 www.ma s s t r a n s it d a n ce. com

gather from around the world to celebrate life with music, dancing, medicine, and togetherness under the sun and stars beside the river. The festival features live music, DJ sets, and two deep and powerful all-night-and-day-long medicinal journeys.

Hammocks, tents, and campfires transform the river into its own village for eight days, including a vegetarian restaurant, raw dessert bar, and kids camp. There will be opportunities to swim; participate in yoga, dance, or other movement classes; and reaffirm intentions during the evening silent sitting meditations. Bring your camping gear, hammock, and instruments for spontaneous jamming sessions. www.pachmama.com

M.U.C.I.D page 8 www.cent er f or in t er n a t ion a ld a n ce. or g

Holland Dance Festival

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Singapore Fringe Festival FEB 15–26 • Singapore The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival combines theatre, dance, mixed media, music, and visual arts created and presented by Singaporean and international artists. The festival is set to be a creative center, with a twin purpose of innovation and discussion, a platform for meaningful and provocative art to engage our increasingly connected and complex world. The theme for the 2012 festival is Art and Religion. How we define religion, and how our religions/faiths define us, is part of the way we construct our world view. The festival will seek to explore the symbols, rites, and rituals we develop based on our beliefs. www.singaporefringe.com

Santa Barbara Graduate Inst. page 4

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Envision Festival page 3

w ww. e n visio n f e sti val .com

JAN 26–FEB 26 • The Hague, The Netherlands Holland Dance stages numerous dance activities for a wide-ranging audience all year round. These activities culminate in the Holland Dance Festival. In addition to a podium for presentation, Holland Dance is also producer, co-producer, and instigator of dance projects. The promotion of dance, with special attention for amateurs and education, is a guiding principle in all of Holland Dance’s activities. This season’s festival will feature performances by Nederlands Dance Theater 1 and 2, Streb Extreme Action Company, Ballet Boyz, Beijing Dance Theater, Sylvie Guillem, and will also host the Holland Dance Gala. en.holland-dance.com/page/festival

www.yoga cen t er los ga t os. com www.yoga rock s t h eb u t t e. com

www.l uci d mz . b logs p ot . com

www.zum b a . com

MAR 28–APR 1 • Ubud, Bali The BaliSpirit Festival is a vibrant and uplifting celebration of yoga, dance, and music. The festival awakens and nourishes each individual’s potential for positive change within, leading to positive change in our homes, in our communities, and around the world. The daytime workshops and Dharma Fair take place in a beautiful tropical venue awash in gentle energy at the Purnati Center for the Arts in Batuan.

The global music concerts in Ubud bring together the traditional rhythms of Africa, Indonesia, Australia, and more. In its fifth year, the festival brings together hundreds of celebrated musicians, yogis, and dancers from every continent as well as students and followers of every calling. www.balispiritfestival.com

RETREATS & WORKSHOPS Canyon Retreat JAN 5–10 • Zion National Park, UT Moving with nature is the core principle of Eastwest Somatics—just as nature allows everything to be itself, to grow, and to change. This winter the Eastwest Somatics Zion Winter Retreat will feature a conference, workshop, and seminar. Topics will include love, power, and service in somatic contexts; healing arts in global contexts; teaching dance and movement somatically; defining somatic practices;

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somatics and social change; working with trauma; facilitating group work through in-depth movement dance therapy; and teaching yoga somatically. www.eastwestsomatics.com

Omega Winter Learning Vacations JAN 7–28 • Nosara, Costa Rica Come soak in the sun on the beaches of Costa Rica with an all-inclusive Omega winter learning vacation at Blue Spirit Retreat in Nosara. Blue Spirit Retreat offers an ideal combination of rest and relaxation, lifelong learning, and inspired living.

Take classes with some of Omega’s top teachers in a lush natural setting at the Pacific Ocean’s edge.

Certified 5Rhythms® teacher Amber Ryan will teach

use intention, research, and relationship to refine our ease and accuracy in the art of co-creation.

Relationship supports expression. The unfolding of expression is infinite. We explore options to enhance our inter-being. Being where we are, becoming happens. Resting in the discovery of mutual wellbeing is the goal of Contact Improvisation. Come celebrate your self-awareness and ability to improvise, on and off the dance floor. www.breitenbush.com/reservations/info.html

Tamalpa Experience Workshop with Daria Halprin JAN 28–29 • Kentfield, CA

Caribbean Yoga Conference FEB 2–5 • Montego Bay, Jamaica The inaugural Caribbean Yoga Conference at the Rose Hall Resort and Spa will bring together people from around the world who are inspired by the practice of yoga, curious about exploring our planet, and ready to embrace a growing community of practitioners from all walks of life. This conference provides practitioners of all ages, experiences, and backgrounds with a balmy, tranquil space to learn from some of the world’s most beloved teachers.

This is a warm celebration of sun, sadhana, sand, and sangha. You will also have the opportunity to venture into the local community through one of our community partner organizations to apply your practice with your teacher. www.caribbeanyogaconference.com

Embracing Earth: Wild Wise Women’s Retreat FEB 3–11 • Bamboo YogaPlay and Selva Armonia Dominical, Costa Rica Join Wild & Wise Founder Cheri Shanti and Graceful Warrior Bamboo YogaPlay Founder Sofiah Thom for a week of sharing, sacred play, and learning in nature, filled with juicy heart sharing, creativity, dance, yoga, drumming, as well as Earth Wisdom sharings from guest presenter Sarah Wu of Punta Mona. Wild & Wise Women’s Series are designed to bring women into their most authentic selves. Through time spent with other women in nature, using the expressive arts, wisdom sharing, meditation, and self inquiry as tools for transformation and self discovery, Wild & Wise offers women fun and powerful experiences for life-changing possibilities. www.wildwisemuse.com

Honoring and Healing the Goddess Within

Revel in style at Timbavati on New Year’s Eve. pg. 37

5Rhythms® Movement as Meditation for three consecutive weeks. Each week-long program is eight days and seven nights, beginning and ending on a Saturday. You will learn to move from your head toward your authentic self, awakening the human potential that lives within each of us. www.eomega.org/omega/costa-rica

Greeting the New Year: Free the Body, Free the Mind

photo: Courtesy of Timbavati

JAN 14–21 • Daku Resort, Savusavu, Fiji Start 2012 with a week-long yoga retreat with Michelle Jayne. Michelle’s practice helps students work with the physical practice of yoga to embrace mental change. “Change is not something that we should fear. Rather, it is something that we should welcome.

For without change, nothing in this world would ever grow or blossom, and no one in this world would ever move forward to become the person they’re meant to be.” Everyone has a path. Yoga is a way to not only build your physical strength, but also your mental and emotional strength. www.paradisecourses.com

WOW of Contact Improvisation JAN 22–27 • Breitenbush Hot Springs, Detroit, OR Contact Improvisation offers the experience of belonging and freedom. When in contact we belong; when improvising we are free. This immersion focuses on developing awareness in order to study and expand our capacity for mutual well-being. We will

Learn how to listen deeply and respond creatively to the powerful intelligence of your body in this two-day intensive workshop facilitated by artist, author, and expressive arts pioneer Daria Halprin.

This workshop introduces the Tamalpa Life/ Art Process®, a unique approach to movement-based expressive arts. Using movement, drawing, poetic writing, and improvisational performance, participants will tap into art’s symbolic language to explore current life themes and generate new resources and inspiration to take back home. www.tamalpa.org

Vividly Woman Sacred Sensual Splendor JAN 28–FEB 4 • FEB 25–MAR 4 • MAR 24–31 Troncones Beach, Mexico Join Leela Francis, noted experiential healing teacher and speaker, in a sacred circle of sisters for a weeklong reunion and nourishing indulgence of your true Goddess essence. Yoga, sacred dance, soulful ritual, and circle time deepen our journey into the sacred sensual beauty that abounds within and around us. Leela Francis, founder of the Vividly Woman Programs, along with her amazing VW co-facilitators, will create a magical and safe space for diving deep and celebrating abundantly. This is the fifth year that Vividly Woman circles have gathered in this tropical paradise. New and established members are welcome. This special retreat can be attended on its own or can also be applied toward the Vividly Woman Embodied Leader certification. Space is limited. www.leelafrancis.com

FEB 9–12 • Duncan Conference Center, Delray, FL The weekend before Valentine’s Day, celebrate and honor your inner beauty, strength, and love within a sacred circle of sisterhood. Shanti and her support team of Carolina Zacaria and Debra Kelly will create the opportunity for you to find your balance and harmony through group activities, bodywork, ceremony, energy medicine, channeling the divine, and guided meditations. You will release the routines or habits that no longer serve your highest good or support what you hope to manifest in life. This retreat will plant powerful new seeds of selflove and assist in creating models of support that will help you ground this nourishing and clarifying time into your daily life. www.journeysofthespirit.com/trips/floridagoddess-retreat

Wild Grace™ Ecstatic Dance FEB 18–24 • Tecate, Mexico At beautiful Rancho La Puerta, release notions of what dance looks like and reclaim your natural, authentic movement with WILD GRACE™ creator Paula Byrne.

Through a blend of music and silence, movement and stillness, the everyday dance will be transformed into a journey of self-discovery. Paula’s inspiring facilitation creates a safe, playful container to deepen body awareness, expand your movement vocabulary, and connect to the pleasure of moving your body from the inside out. Since 1996, Paula has been leading classes and workshops in ecstatic dance, authentic movement, blindfolded trance dance, and Contact Improvisation. www.SomaSpace.us

Rhythm and Flow: A Vinyasa and Kirtan Retreat FEB 19–24 • Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA To practice asana is to become one with the eternal vibration; to chant is to give it voice. On this retreat, these two practices will be experienced as one unfolding. Join yogi Rolf Gates and kirtan musician Girish for a retreat experience that combines dynamic vinyasa flow classes, expert alignment and meditation conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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Axis Dance performs in Miami with danceAble, part of the Florida Dance Association WinterFest. p. 36

Live and teach your yoga at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. pg. 36

instruction, and inspiring kirtan sessions. The practice of both chanting and yoga offer you the chance to move out of the conceptual mind into direct experience. This intensive retreat is about stepping back from your routine and your habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. This simple act of pausing creates peace, and the opportunity to intentionally move into the next moment of your life. www.esalen.org

The Yoga of Chant Retreat FEB 24–26 • Nassau, Bahamas Nourish your heart, inspire your mind, and uplift your spirit with chanting virtuoso Krishna Das. One of the foremost devotional singers in the world, he is a disciple of Neem Karoli Baba and has sung with other yogis in the United States and India, including Ram Das. Sharing his heart through music and chanting is the basis of Krishna Das’ spiritual work. In his concerts and workshops, he uses the joy and power of chanting to lead his audiences beautifully into the inner heart space. During this retreat there will be evening kirtan concerts, afternoon workshops with chanting, the yoga of devotion, musical accompaniment, and teachings on Bhakti yoga. www.krishnadas.com

Mexico Dance Retreat

photo: Courtesy of Kripalu Center

FEB 24–MAR 3 • Monasterio Benedictino, Ahuatepec, Morelos, Mexico The 16th annual Circle Dance and Paneurhythmy retreat will be an international gathering of Circle Dance, healing arts, and music. Circle Dance is both an ancient and modern way of creating harmony, nurturing our bodies, freeing our minds, and generating love and connection within ourselves, our community, and with the divine. The full program includes a variety of dance facilitators, special events and workshops, excursions to sacred sites and pyramids, excellent food, the beauty of the monastery, and the chance to explore the historic village of Tepoztlan. www.danzacircular.com

Dynamic Mythology Experience MAR 16–18 • New Orleans, LA Shamanic cultures experience the entire body as a thinking organism rather than limiting intelligence to the physical brain. Wilbert Alix has earned

international recognition as a contemporary healer and teacher of progressive psychology and neo-shamanism. His Dynamic Mythology Experience utilizes five contemporary shamanic movement and dance-based modalities for accessing levels of shamanic trance. Alix says of this workshop, “My intention is to bring into focus the enormously complex worlds of mysticism, psychology, shamanic spirituality, and science for the purpose of clear direction and achievement.” With Alix, you will explore various body-centered, altered states first hand, resulting in the embodiment of wisdom and the discovery of alternative solutions to difficult situations. www.trancedance.com/dynamicshamanism.do

Spring Sound Healing and Yoga Retreat MAR 23–25 • Ojai, CA Join sound healers and movement lovers Jamie Bechtold and Daniella White for a weekend of transformation through sound healing and movement.

The retreat takes place the first weekend of spring at beautiful Calliote Canyon in Ojai. The weekend will include daily yoga classes, sound baths with Paiste gongs and crystal singing bowls, vocal toning, meditation, hooping and/or ecstatic dance, local organic vegetarian cuisine, and more. www.dancingspiral.com

Body Tales Spring Retreat

MAR 18–23 • Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA The 5Rhythms® is a moving meditation practice, an improvisational form of dance. It is a map of an energetic wave that we see in the patterns, rhythms, and cycles of life. How can the rhythms help us navigate the landscape of this life? How can we foster fluidity through the embodiment of this practice? We will practice the embodiment of transition and change as we move from rhythm to rhythm. In this place, we fulfill our potential to both give and receive all that is available to us in this life.

This workshop is designed for anybody, of any age or size. Learn skills that you can apply to your daily life as well as on any dance floor. www.luciahoran.com

MAR 23–25 • Santa Cruz, CA Body Tales® is a creative and healing practice that integrates voice, movement, and personal storytelling. This unique form combines elements of theater, dance, and expressive arts. It encourages and supports an embodied value system in which the well-being of the Earth is central. During this spring retreat in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains you will work with Olivia Corson and Lysa Castro. Tend and attend body, earth, and inner world. Experience intuitive movement, sounding, story-gathering, depth witnessing, creativity, healing, artistry, beauty and sanctuary in nature, rest, camaraderie, hot tub, cold plunge, star-gazing, redwoods, meadow-dancing, stillness, support, grieving, celebrating, dreaming, re-humanizing, renewal. www.bodytales.com

Soul Motion™ with Vinn Martí – “Freedom to Soar”

2012 Sacred Circularities Hoop Dance Retreat in Bali

5Rhythms®: Form, Fluidity, Freedom with Lucia Horan

MAR 22–26 • Bali, Indonesia The practice of Soul Motion™ is grounded in principles of perception, and courting a presence that encourages accurate responses to the everyday dance. This presence invites a deep dive into a place of creativity, where students access wisdom of the body through their direct movement experience.

Award-winning performer, choreographer, and designer of Soul Motion™, Vinn Martí served as co-director of Portland, Oregon’s, innovative movement arts studio, Body Moves, for 18 years. He now leads seminars and workshops internationally teaching Soul Motion™, a movement ministry of dance for experiencing movement as meditation. www.soulmotion.com

APR 3–10 and APR 10–17 • Ubud, Bali In its third year, Sacred Circularities will host a Spiritual Hoop Dance retreat in beautiful Bali for all levels of hoopers. The first transformational week will feature Christabel Zamor, Jocelyn Gordon, and Shakti Sunfire with additional workshops on theta healing, tantric hooping, and tantric yoga practices. The second week’s co-facilitators will be Bunny Hoop Star, Ann Humphreys, and Anah Reichenbach with additional workshops in crystal bowl sound meditation and shamanic dreaming. Both weeks Rainbow Michael will share his hoop/poi fusion emphasizing Sacred Geometry in motion. www.sacredcircularities.com conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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reviews

R E V IE W S books Sleight by Kirsten Kaschock Kirsten Kaschock unfolds her first novel like a mystery, revealing in scattered glimpses her characters, their relationships and histories, and the intricacies of Sleight, the dreamed-up performance art that initially inspired her book. This extensive character development and back story drives the plot, while dialogue, journal entries, and non-narrative word improvisations help her meandering tale develop subtly.

The book follows two sets of siblings through the development of a new Sleight performance. Despite a long estrangement, sisters Lark and Clef share an uncanny physical bond; together they grapple with struggles old and new, balancing their personal needs with commitment to other, realizing their artistic power even as they begin to collapse the structures of their lives. Brothers Byrne and Marvel, on the other hand, have little to do with one another until a visionary Sleight director lures them into his provocative new production. Still reeling from a family trauma, the talented brothers bear their wounds visibly: Marvel numbs himself with drugs; Byrne pays penance via a self-induced handicap. Each sibling has what the other lacks — Clef’s fire to Lark’s darkness, Marvel’s color to Byrne’s words. Every family in this book bears children who can’t be complete without their kin. As her plot begins to cohere, Kaschock weaves this motif into a tale about an art form that also requires the contributions of many in order to be whole. In doing so, she raises questions of what it means to dedicate oneself to an art form. When a performer masters her form and melts wholly into her work, where does she go? How much can one sacrifice for an art form? Do artists reserve the right to create work based on human suffering? Is this their responsibility?

Kaschock brings a magical realism to the page as her tale offers a slight (or should I say “sleight”?) tweak on reality. The world she creates is not quite otherworldly, but somehow retains a feeling of fantasy, making readers look twice to be sure it’s really the same quotidian society in which we live. However, characters with quirks like blue fingers and physical telepathy/empathy slowly morph from preternatural to mundane through the course of the novel, while footnotes lend the text an official tone, suggesting an alternate version of history that’s been covered up all these years. In fact, it’s tempting to google some of the “historical” facts presented in Sleight, just to make sure you didn’t miss something in that American history class years ago.

The book leaves the reader slightly befuddled but nevertheless pleased, like waking up from a dream that just might have been real. E.S. www.coffeehousepress.org

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Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance

by Jonathan Fields

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

by John J. Ratey M.D.

This book explores and clarifies a paradox that faces all of us, whether we call ourselves creative types or not. We tend to work to eliminate uncertainty as much as possible, but by eliminating it we limit novelty as well, which is the starting point for creation and innovation. To lean into uncertainty is to face fear and doubt, and Fields, serial entrepreneur, blogger, and author of Career Renegade, shows us in this well-written manual for creatives how to become fear alchemists and transmute common roadblocks into creative fire. Full of inspiring anecdotes and practical tips and practices, this book is valuable to anyone nurturing a creative spark. Mindfulness techniques, meditation, dance, and fitness bolster Fields’ argument that if you want to become a great creator you must take action. This is the story of how he embraced the unknown and turned his own creative process into more of a dance than a race — he gave up a promising six-figure career as a corporate lawyer to make $12 an hour as a personal trainer, then as the father of a three-monthold baby signed the papers to run a yoga center in New York City on the day before 9/11, landing on his feet. His tale is inspiring, his tools are practical, and his book will put you back in the game.

M.M. www.jonathanfields.com

This book makes a great point very convincingly. Evidence from every angle shows that higher fitness levels directly relate to positive mood, lower levels of anxiety and stress, and overall brain health. Research from kinesiologists to epidemiologists shows that the better your fitness level, the better your brain works.

Author Dr. John Ratey, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, sees a positive trend in medicine and education as people officially take exercise seriously. The reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best. Ratey makes the point that the sedentary character of modern life is one of the biggest threats to our continued survival. Modern neuroscience is bearing out what many of us have known intuitively all along. Studies of dancers, for example, show that moving to an irregular rhythm improves brain plasticity. Exercise benefits the brain to support learning and to lessen the effects of stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, ADD, hormonal changes, and aging. Ratey also offers a regimen of practical knowledge to help build your brain. This engaging book inspires with juicy anecdotes and hard science, offering a logical argument for getting off the couch.

One to read and pass along that makes the science behind the mind-body connection enjoyable.

M.M. www.johnratey.typepad.com

Give the gift of

optimism

TM

w w w.bopt im is t .c o m

A p p a r e l

C o m p a n y

February 10 - 12, 2012 Mt. Crested Butte, CO

www.yogarocksthebutte.com

Shiva Rea • Dave Stringer • Twee Merrigan • Micheline Berry and more!

Slopeside • Green fest • Organic food Marketplace • Spa All inclusive packages: food, lodging, kids, teens.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW Pre-reg passes are discounted to $350 until 12/31 Full Festival Pass is $500 monica@yogarocksthebutte.com • 970.596.271

A yoga, music and family festival in “Colorado’s great ski town”

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011

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reviews

R E V IE W S DVDs Vine of the Soul: Encounters with Ayahuasca This documentary offers an even-handed and revealing look at ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic plant medicine used in shamanistic healing. Director Richard Meech intersperses scientific clips from ethnobotanist Dennis McKenna, PhD, and Gabor Maté, noted addiction expert, with the story of three seekers on a trip to Peru.

There they will encounter the Stone Age psychotropic brew for the first time in a series of three ceremonies over the course of a week. Guillermo, the shaman and host of the garden retreat, says that it’s a cleansing process that works on three levels: physical, psychological, and spiritual. “It will teach you what you need to know.” Rob is an accountant at a media company, Kirsten is a professional in the medical field, and Colin is a young father set on strengthening his relationship with his wife. Rob’s is a spiritual quest, Kirsten seeks to validate her role as a healer, and Colin is simply seeking therapy. McKenna contrasts the experience with faith-based religions: “You don’t have to have faith, it’s the perfect tool for skeptics. Don’t believe me, don’t believe what anyone tells you, take it, have the experience, evaluate it for yourself, make of it what you will.”

Rob, Colin and Kirsten each learn far more than they expected from the plant teacher, and the filmmakers visit their homes months later to see how the lessons have been integrated into their lives. Kirsten describes it as “the most humbling experience of my life,” adding, “I was left with an insane level of gratitude for a kind of love I’d never felt in my life.” Rob states, “It gives you a second chance at being yourself.”

Colin says, “It’s helped me be much more accepting in my relationship.” Maté concurs from the therapeutic point of view: “The essence of addiction is trying to complete yourself from the outside. Ayahuasca is about going within.” The origin of ayahuasca is one of the great mysteries, and when asked the shaman says that the plants told them which two to brew. The shaman also says it is time to spread the teachings of ayahuasca beyond the jungle, which McKenna views as a bio-intelligent survival mechanism. The extra scenes in this film explore the pharmacology and neuroscience of ayahuasca as well as how the human species co-evolved with plants. Kenneth Tupper, author of The Globalization of Ayahuasca sees it as a valuable adjunct to traditional Western approaches in treatment of depression, addiction, and anxiety. Overall, this DVD provides a thoughtful and well-nuanced glimpse at a powerful substance, whose message is simply that the great mystery is beyond our grasp. M.M. www.vineofthesoul.com

MIXER MIX MASTERS SPOTLIGHT

DJ ALIA Top Ten artist / track title

1. OTT Smoked Glass and Chrome 2. Akara The Emperor and the Oracle 3. vinja Droppleganger 4. MIMOSA Drippin

6. Ekova Temoine (Farmakit extended remix) 7. florence and the machine Cosmic Love (Short Club Remix) 8. phutureprimitive High Rez 9. Mr. projectile Love Here (Bassnectar Remix) 10. halou I’ll Carry You

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Affectionately dubbed “the goddess of grooves and rhythms,” Alia (formerly Bombgoddess) has rapidly become a fixture of the Bay Area conscious movement and Burning Man scenes. Weaving an intoxicating blend of globally infused electro-tribal grooves, melodic glitch hop, inspired dubstep, and cosmic downtempo, she evokes the sacred while awakening a connection to our human experience through rhythm and movement. She has shared the stage with the likes of Freq Nasty, Beats Antique, Marty Party, An-ten-nae, Random Rab, Heyoka, and Bay Area favorite DJ Dragonfly. Trained as a dancer, Alia can take a room into deep ecstasy with her bright energy and serpentine movements. www.aliarhythms.com

photo: bhaskar banerji

5. GOVINDA Universal on Switch

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results

Improvising a path to freedom with InterPlay’s friendly forms and philosophy.

We just let our bodies move and did what felt good and right at that time.

Pamela Coville Retired UC Berkeley entomologist.

Oakland, CA Activities: Singing, watercolor painting, gardening, and knitting.

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I’m a 64-year-old Chinese-American woman who was properly brought up to be polite and respectful, and not be seen or heard. Cynthia Winton-Henry’s book about Interplay, What the Body Wants, told me that I have a voice and that I matter.

After much hesitation I decided to go to Interplayce in Oakland, California, and see what Interplay was all about. I picked the voice meditation class because I thought it would help me with my singing. I was worried that I wouldn’t fit in and would do things wrong, but other students were very friendly and I felt comfortable in this new environment.

Fun and easy to do, Interplay is based on a series of incremental “forms” that offer participants the chance to play with movement, stories, and voice. In class we flung imaginary paint balls at the wall and floor, made loud and soft noises to our hearts’ content, and moved fast, slow, or stood still. There was no right or wrong way to move. We just let our bodies move and did what felt good and right at that time.

When our accompanist Mark improvised music on the keyboard, we danced or not and things came up for me. To my surprise, I started crying. I hadn’t realized that I had stored so much pain in my body. All my old hurts and baggage came up and no one told me to stop or asked if I needed help. They were there to witness my struggles and allow me the freedom to ask for a hug or not.

Six weeks after joining InterPlay I was given the option of going with Cynthia on a two-week trip to India. I debated internally about whether to ask my husband or therapist for advice. In the end I made the decision to go on my own. Interplay has fostered my inner authority by teaching me to listen to what my body wants and needs in the moment and letting that govern. In the warm-ups the leader says, “Listen to your body; if it hurts don’t do it, modify it, there’s no right or wrong way.” This is different than everything else in life.

In India I saw extremes of poverty and unfamiliar ways of living. I learned to wash out of a bucket of cold water when hot water was unavailable and to dance with village people and visit their homes. People were very friendly and I enjoyed vibrant city streets, music, and dance.

After we came home, I continued going to InterPlay and enrolled in a series of intensive, two-day Life Practice sessions. Being involved in InterPlay has made me more able to do things that are fun for me and to stop activities that no longer fit the new me.

I’ve started to clean out the clutter and hoarding that I learned from my Depression Era parents and surround myself with beautiful things that I enjoy.

Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry founded InterPlay 22 years ago in Berkeley, California, and today it is practiced in 60 cities on six continents. It’s a fun practice in which people are accepted as they are. Together we learn to lead or follow or blend our abilities and to find healing through movement.

For more information, visit www.inter play.org.

photo: courtesey of interplay

RESULTS

Amongst the most beautiful studios on the planet. – Isabelle Du Soleil

Magical... an amazing and energizing place. – Baron Baptiste

Breathe Immerse

the cleanest air in the world.

yourself in the transformative aloha spirit of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Our jungle and ocean view studios provide a magical space for yoga and dance instructors to inspire.

Visit for a personal retreat, or join those who have already discovered the joy of holding a workshop in the midst of invigorating paradise.

Reservations & Group Info: (800) 800 6886 | www.kalani.com

closing circle

The Gods have meant That I should dance And in some mystic hour I shall move to unheard rhythms Of the cosmic orchestra of heaven And you will know the language Of my wordless poems And will come to me For that is why I dance.

— Ruth St. Denis

Photo-illustrations seen in this issue (here and in the “Being Danced” feature) are the work of Moldavian photographer Igor Zenin. www.zeninphoto.com

71 years ago yoga’s presence in North America was still

in its infancy, and we didn’t call our fitness resort “organic” or “sustainable.” To us, it was all simply a way of life!

Clockwise from upper left: founder Edmond Szekely, early organic farm at the Ranch, yoga teacher Indra Devi at the Golden Door, and 1940s Ranch tent cabin

Today at the Ranch, yoga and dance continue to be central to our fitness program, and it marries extraordinarily well with our respect for nature, organic foods, and mind, body and spirit health.

After our opening in 1940, founders Deborah and Edmond Szekely met the West’s yoga pioneer Indra Devi and welcomed her to both our valley in Baja California, as well as our sister spa, the Golden Door, which Deborah started in the late ‘50s in northern San Diego. Eventually Indra Devi bought ranch land from the Szekely’s next to theirs in Baja and welcomed yoga devotees. We were a ”yoga central” valley!

Our innovation continues…each year we hold our annual “ashram week” in August and welcome masters such as Swami Veda of Rishikesh, India. And every week our own masterful yoga teachers and guest yoga masters make your week at the Ranch the best yoga vacation possible.

Experience the Original. Experience the fabled “Ranch” where your own door opens to the longer, healthier life.

8 7 7- 4 4 0 - 7 7 7 8 | w w w . r a n c h o l a p u e r t a . c o m

V oted “W orld ’ s B est d estination s pa ” (Travel+Leisure magazine Readers’ Polls 2010 & 2011)