DANCING WITH CONSCIENCE
Every movement can be a dance, but that doesn’t mean every movement is a dance.”
Joanne Skinner, kinesiologist, founder of the Skinner Release Technique
A simple walk on the street is a mechanical move. The same walk on stage, as part of a choreography, can be dance… Because he has a conscience.
Dance, in recent years, has evolved in many ways. Especially the techniques of modern dance are evolving rapidly, including even acrobatic dance. At the same time, the “demand” for more dance ingenuity and expression is cultivated, something that is pursued through the method of dance improvisation. All these can be avenues for physical expression and relief, for all those who want to be taught dance lessons as a creative occupation. However, for those who choose and experience dance as an Art, evolution in technical and physical expression is an important path and way of life. Both ordinary dance students (the “hobbyists”) and dance professionals maintain – or should maintain – something in common: consciousness.
– What makes the movements danceable is the consciousness that “now I dance”
In a dance class, in the whole process of physical training and release, what makes the movements danceable is the consciousness that “now I dance”. And this is not something simple. It comes after practice: I learn the movements, listen to the instructions, observe when I achieve the correct execution of the movement or the desired dance expression. I repeat with caution and concentration. I recall with memory. I create with imagination.
Attention to detail and concentration on instruction train the mind to lead the body to more freedom of expression. That’s when consciousness works: the mind and body coordinate and keep out of them everything superfluous and meaningless. They focus on how to express through the body everything the mind wants to say and wants to express the emotion. That’s when I become consciously selective. I am concerned about what happens at that time, during dance class: my difficult tool is my body. My body is called upon to resist gravity and its physiology. The only way to turn this disobedience into these two laws [of gravity and physiology] is attention and concentration on the moment and purpose. Together with the body I am called to harness my emotion and thought… Just to express my feeling and thought through my body. And this expression will turn out to be strong and beautiful precisely because I have managed to pay attention and concentrate only on what is necessary for my purpose. Even if that involves pain… physical and mental.’
– Dance is a demanding art that is difficult to “lie”
The memory and imagination that push the creation of a choreography, an improvisation, develop simultaneously with attention and concentration, or… They provoke and ask for attention and concentration: a creative idea for a choreography will remain in the mind and will not translate into dance if I do not concentrate on it. The creative call came. Imagination “spoke”. And I am called upon to focus on this and express it through a choreography that should… I remember to teach or dance it, otherwise the idea will remain in theory, while dance is practice. It is common for dance students to follow the teacher by copying him, but not be able to dance the choreography because they do not remember it. Or they can’t create a choreography because they can’t imagine. To remember, I must first pay attention and concentrate on what I am taught. In order to creatively imagine and physically express what I imagine, I must first have developed my physical capabilities (through attention and concentration).
If I put consciousness into the dance lesson I improve as a student and as a person: I cultivate my strengths by paying attention and concentrating on them, while, consciously, accepting to what extent I have truly committed myself to dance and thus becoming clear with my priorities: I cannot have the highest results that the one who devotes himself to dance every day has, But I get the best possible results for me working two to three hours a week. And this is an important moment of truth and responsibility.
Unfortunately or fortunately, dance is a demanding art that is difficult to “lie”: if I have really worked on what I love [with attention, concentration, memory and imagination] it will show because I will express it with physical integrity and precision, with beauty and harmony. Then I have evolved as a dancer but also as a person. Then I have practiced and developed my consciousness through dance and for dance. Then – at my level – I have elevated dance to Art.
