Serenade for String Orchestra in C Major

Piotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, recorded by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. 

My love returned home in between jobs, and I was excited to share my delight in the new dance studio.

We each were centred on our own axes, and used the language of Dance Together to express the rhythm. We moved strongly for three of four bars of the phrase, which then dropped precipitously, but we were ever on our axes, dissipating the momentum through a free leg, or allowing the embrace to flow without affecting our balance.

We felt through new techniques learned from our improvisation teachers, recognising understandings for the first time. We had a new trust in each other, and a new freedom from judgment in ourselves. I experienced a lack of desire to please at my own expense. We occasionally fell into the tight precision of step and pivot, but it was an uncomfortable situation for my body on the polished concrete floor. It engaged me in the painful push-me-pull-you twisting pattern I've spent the last two years healing.

So I stopped allowing it. I released my shoulders to walk out of the lead, gently turning around my shoulder joint (free of crunch adhesions for the first time, ever) and his axis to absorb the pivot meant for my supporting leg. But in time with the music, and when I found the new direction - how wonderful it is to have a large space to dance! - led my beloved to walk into a direction I could see, behind him or to the sides of me.

Knowing what I knew about the feelings of pivoting on this floor, I led him to walk around his legs, rather than twist on them. This allowed us to relax, dance without pain or strain, and so to smoothly swing our hips, move through our embrace, throwing and catching the lead with the elasticity of our frame.

And all of a sudden, our energy brought us precisely still, sharing a tight embrace from our chests to our pelvises, connecting in an agreement to continue on with our mornings. Grateful for the magical connection, in our magical space, at this magical time of our lives.  

Casting our dancing spell, realising what we have created through our focus and attention.

We tried to record a video of this (magical) dance, but realised once we finished our dance that the phone hadn't recorded.  I didn't care. The dance existed. The connection was fact. The realisation was real. The joy is tangible.

How to master dancing

Firstly, what is mastery when it comes to dance? We think that it’s about training your body so it’s prepared and ready to move in dance, without thinking, comfortably and enjoyably. It’s not achieving some arbitrary level of expertise, not related to any extrinsic goals, really doesn’t depend on anyone else’s judgement.

But it takes time, and effort.

You can read through the courses here in a morning. There aren't too many words, and we've tried to make the explanations clear using simple language and introducing concepts in logical sequences. (If you have ideas to improve this - get in touch!)

Reading is one thing. Changing your mind can happen in an instant. Learning to dance involves changing the physical material of your body.

It's not a complicated process, and we have included ideas for you to practice - and coming soon is a course for training your body for dance, with exercises and ideas to help you. But it requires a little repetition over time to condition our bodies for ease of movement. It shouldn’t feel hard, but the more you dance, the better you get. The better you get, the better you feel!

Don't give up! There are simple exercises you can do daily by yourself to prime your body to lead and follow, do them daily, dance when you are able and you will soon be burning up the dance floor! (or kitchen, or paddock, or… where do you dance?)

Why no videos?

Let me be clear. All dance is good dance.

So much of our lives is spent in dusty rooms or under glaring sun, or in freezing sleet, performing tasks that have been set by others. We begin as children, trying to gain the smiles of our parents, and then in school, giving the right answers to get the good grades, to get a good job, so we can spend the next 40 or 50 years working to get better jobs, promotions or pay  rises.

In our leisure activities too, we do things that give us dopamine hits because we receive approval from others: you probably know this about social media, but it's also endemic in sports, games, even art. We perform for extrinsic rewards.

What if there were something we could do, just for ourselves, where the motivations came just from us, from our own desires? Our desire, even for deep connection, with ourselves, with others. Not for the rewards it would bring, but just for the joy of connection?

Dance can do this, but not if it comes with expectations of "right way" and "wrong way". If you see videos of people dancing as part of the teaching material, you will expect that they are showing the right way to do it, and immediately your brain will expect that you will need to copy them, in order to do it "right".

There's a whole world of dance videos out there, and a large community of people learning to copy other people's movements as precisely as they can. Where is the creativity in all of these copies? It becomes a very reductive activity. Once you've copied, learned and posted, you need to move on to the next video to repeat. The creators, the choreographers, are few and far between, but the potential for creativity is within all of us, if we stop focusing on what others have done, and begin to do it ourselves.

Also, learning to dance by watching people is a hard skill to learn. Yes, we have mirror neurons, which can help, but reading words lands in our subconscious brain. From there they can grow original synapses into our bodies, and send deep understanding of movement ideas and techniques from the centre of your consciousness into your body.

Once you have a new understanding of how to move, and trained your body to move in those ways, your creativity will find a rich dynamic new medium for you to express yourself - to learn, understand, and express the essence of who you are.

When we are moving from the core of ourselves, it becomes a joy to connect with others also moving from the centre of themselves, and you will soon find the delight that comes with the nuanced communication of two beings moving together as one.

Remember: all dance is good dance. Let us know how it feels for you.

Miserere mei, Deus

Gregorio Allegri, The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge

The rain begins to pound on the roof when he comes in from cutting timber. He lights the fire, turns on the music. “Let’s dance” he says, and the rich, ethereal chorus of Miserere spreads through the warm air.

She begins by stepping into him, lifting his arms with hers overhead, bringing them down in between them, palm to palm, in the holy pilgrims’ kiss within their sacred chapel. A movement which recurs often over the next eight minutes.

She follows until she takes the lead to send him into double time here, sustain the step as the boy’s soaring soprano denies the step a moment through her, using him as its servant to express the delay.

Then she plants her left foot, bent at the knee as she swings her free leg to follow the swing in the crescendo. He steps around her supporting leg, bringing her with him, through 360°, 720°, until she redirects the swing of her right leg to place her foot next to his supporting foot.

She leads a quick triple step change of weight and pulls him together towards her backwards step, releases control.

He drops into a rock step, scanning for direction. Finding the rhythm, listening for the melody. Expressing the melody, changing feet, 1, 3, 1, 3, being unable to stop himself from following the tunes, being so connected through pelvis, chest, shoulders, arms of his partner, the transmission expressed through her feet in perfect time.

He leads her to step as he does not step, turning his chest as she steps across him in double time. She flicks her calf in half a circle as she takes the step, twisting her axis around in front of him, moving his arm overhead. Bringing their arms in front of her, embracing. She softens her knees, her back into his front, and he takes her weight, backwards a step, a step to the side, her upper body has double gravity and drags forwards, to the side, creating a play with the gravity of the plain song.

The choir respond in galaxy defining angelic union. She faces him and explodes with movement, trying to touch the sound. He touches her, holding her waist, supporting her chest, lifting her above her legs so she can fly.