Dance: Food for the Soul

Journey to the Greatest Gift: celebrating 50 years of L'Arche Daybreak

1/20/2019

L’Arche Daybreak’s 50th anniversary kicks off March 5th with the theatrical premiere of Journey to the Greatest Gift, a celebration of how people with and without intellectual disabilities and from different social origins, religions and cultures can live and learn together. The event is being held at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts.

This original stage production has been specially commissioned to celebrate community and belonging through acting, song, dance and visual storytelling. It will feature the talents of the entire Daybreak community, both onstage and off. Taking centre stage will be the L’Arche Daybreak Spirit Movers, L’Arche Toronto’s Sol Express and a cast that includes people of all abilities. Cameo appearances will also be made on stage by special guests from the town of Richmond Hill. Set design, props and projection were inspired by original artwork created by Daybreak artists.

“Journey to the Greatest Gift is more than a variety show or cabaret and unlike anything seen before on stage,” noted L’Arche Daybreak Community Leader Trish Glennon. “It’s an original play that pulls together many different people from within the community to celebrate all the special gifts we share with each other.”

Tickets are available online or by phone at (905) 787-8811 through the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts box office. Visit www.rhcentre.caand click on “Buy Tickets”.

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January 19th, 2019

1/19/2019

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Listening Through the Body

4/28/2013

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I'm really looking forward to facilitating Dance Our Way Home at 80 Gladstone on Monday night! The invitation is "Listening Through the Body". We are so often encouraged in bodywork practices to "listen to the body" but this workshop is about another way of listening, (as it's described in this quote by Phillip Shepherd) it is about "listening to the world through the body". "The world is calling you to come play, to come risk, to let your heart burn with a passion that will make sense of your life".

Contact me for more info. 80 Gladstone 7:30-9pm on Monday April 29th. register @ 7:15 Drop-in, sliding scale $10-$30.

Here's a link to the awesome interview with Phillip Shepherd that inspired this workshop:

philipshepherd.com

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November 12th, 2012

11/12/2012

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Image from Picasso PRO`s Talking Movement performance, November 11th, 2012, Al Green Theatre, Toronto. Photo by barryroden.com

Rest & Relaxation
Today I am taking the day for some much needed R&R. I'm delightfully exhausted after a long weekend of rehearsal and performance with Picasso Pro. Our first presentation of Talking Movement (work in progress) went incredibly well! A piece of dance/theatre we feel very proud of.

The piece began with choreographer Miriam Rother's search for ways to communicate individual perception and experience. It has been in development for over two years by an ensemble of performers which includes deaf/hearing dancers and artists with and without disabilities. I am honoured to part of the ensemble and hope we get more opportunities in the future to share this work!

I posted the pictures of plants at work because I like them. The images (and memories that go along with them) give me a sense of calming nourishment. Inspiration to get up from this cat-cuddling, blog-writing reverie and cook all the veggies I have in the fridge. A soup methinks. Perfect for this cozy, fall day. I like starting with a recipe and then letting my available ingredients and sudden culinary impulses take over and sometimes surprise me.

Pig in the Kitchen
(soup photo credit)
...another tasty vegan site.

“Did you ever stop to taste a carrot? Not just eat it, but taste it? You can’t taste the beauty and energy of the earth in a Twinkie.”
--Astrid Alauda

"When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden."
--Minnie Aumonier

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September 27th, 2012

9/27/2012

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These words give me a sense of relief. They serve as a reminder to trust in the uncertainty I often encounter. The questions themselves are an essential part of the journey. The creative process can be confusing and in those moments I worry about where it's all going. But I think this incomprehensibility must a good sign...

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August 14th, 2012

8/23/2012

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Nourishment (relaxing on a beach in NS a few years ago with some soul-sisters)

Today my thoughts are on what feeds the heart, mind and soul. I just picked up my copy of 'Community and Growth' by Jean Vanier and reading the chapter on nourishment has touched me in a place (my heart) that I really needed to connect with. I've been carrying a sense of weariness lately, lacking in inspiration and motivation. As I write this, I am avoiding the pile of dishes in my sink, the dirty laundry and the many other jobs that need attending to. But I'm glad to take this time for some nourishment and reflection.

Jean Vanier writes that "we are in danger of living superficially, on the periphery of ourselves. We tend to react to immediate stimuli, to demands from individuals who confront us and the need for 'urgent' action; we tend to flee from the treasure hidden within us. When for one reason or another, we become aware of it, or when it is touched by an external event, we are nourished. We are nourished by everything that stirs that which is deepest in us and brings it to consciousness. This may be a word, a reading, a meeting, or a suffering: all these can awaken our deepest heart, recentre us, strengthen our faith, and renew our hope".

I think it's time to turn off the computer and go take care of my house. When my space is clean and organized, I feel so much more creative and energized! When I get home after a long day and my place is a mess, I'm so much more likely to crash on the couch for the entire evening with my computer for some mindless online distraction. Too much time spent passively, looking at a screen makes me feel zombielike.

'Community and Growth' was written before the time of so much online distraction. When it was originally published in 1979, Jean Vanier warned that too much television "when looked at without discernment or because one has nothing better to do" is like poison for the "spiritual life and the life of love and compassion."

"Television provides images and information and stimulates emotions but cuts people off from relationship. It is possible to look at television with great passivity, just swallowing it in; this maims the capacity to react, which is inherent in relationship. Television may stimulate the imagination but generally does not feed the heart."

So with this in mind, I am going offline! At least for a few hours anyway. After I clean up, I'm meeting a friend for a restorative yoga class. And since starting to write this, the rain has stopped, the sun is out and the cicadas are back in noisy-action. I love the way Life moves (and moves me along with it)!

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July 27th, 2012

7/27/2012

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Why I dance... Pourquoi je danse...
A beautiful video by the Ontario Arts Council to cultivate engagement and interest in dance.

Dance=Freedom+Joy!

EVERYbody can dance! And everyBODY is uniquely beautiful. So EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!

Dancers are often held up as examples of physical perfection. But I like to challenge narrow notions of beauty and see all different forms, shapes, sizes and abilities as beautiful. Mainstream media often only shows us a limited spectrum (usually very tiny, athletic, two-dimentional, photoshopped bodies). But I love three-dimentionality and I celebrate diversity!

It also doesn't really matter how "good" of a dancer you are (unless you are competing on So You Think You Can Dance? or aspire to someday star in Swan Lake). All it takes is a dance-floor (or living-room or kitchen) and a heartbeat! It also helps if you don't worry about what you look like. And even if you do, it's ok. In safe dance-space everything is allowed. Once you start moving, chances are you'll stop thinking about what you look like and just start to feel it. Authentic Movement or dancing in a way where you are following your own inner impulses is an invitation to experience your body from the inside out. When our minds and bodies get disconnected or too brainwashed by the media, we worry about what we look like and imagine ourselves from the outside through a judgemental lens. But dancing is a way of reconnecting with ourselves and expressing our inner-life. Enjoying ourselves and shining our light is a gift to everyone around us. Happiness (or any other kind of honest emotional expression) is very contagious!

Basically what I'm saying is that to shake your groove thing is a courageous act of generosity!!!

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July 19th, 2012

7/19/2012

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Standing out in a crowd! I like this photo (that I randomly found online & am unable to give photo credit for), as I've been thinking about the willingness to defy the ordinary. To be who you are, how you are, wherever you are. In my last post I mentioned that "social pressure dictates I sit passively on the TTC" and since writing that, I've been noticing people who disregard such social pressure (or maybe aren't even aware of it). Yesterday I saw a young guy wearing big headphones, fully getting his groove on on the Bloor-Danforth line. He made me and everyone around him smile. I wish I could do that. But I'm such a social chameleon and despite the performer in me, in most situations, I prefer to not be the centre of attention. If everyone were as free and dancing weren't such a "strange" thing to do in public, maybe I could also dance my way to work!?

This reminds me of the Dance Walking movement inspired by Ben Aaron and the Nameless Guru Dance Walk Master (whose name turns out to be Joe). Since the Dance Walking video went viral, several groups in cities world-wide have organized Dance Walks (including Toronto; spearheaded by my teacher Erica Ross) and it's become an international dance-craze! I haven't tried it yet...but I really want to!

Celebrating in the streets and the colourful interruption of hectic city-living is something I truly idealize. I can't say that I do enough of it, but I LOVE the concept and want it to happen more often!

There's an amazing essay by Thomas Merton called 'The Street is for Celebration' that I often re-read that sparks a certain passion in me. Here are a few lines from that essay:

"Celebration is when we let joy make itself out of our love. We like to be together. We like to dance together. We like to make pretty and amusing things. We like to laugh at what we have made. We like to put bright colors on the walls–more bright colors on ourselves. We like our pictures, they are crazy.

Celebration is crazy: the craziness of not submitting, even though “they,” “the others,” the ones who make life impossible, seem to have all the power. Celebration is the beginning of confidence, therefore of power.

When we laugh at them, when we celebrate, when we make our lives beautiful, when we give one another joy by loving, by sharing, then we manifest a power they cannot touch. We can be artisans of a joy they never imagined".

--Thomas Merton

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July 16th, 2012

7/16/2012

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My feet/Mom's hands. Photo by Don MacLean 1981

We start out as children with our minds and bodies naturally connected. There is no split between them. We experience ourselves as part of the world, not separate from it. Our senses are fully alive and we enjoy the feeling of being in our bodies. Dancing comes naturally; a bodily response to rhythm.

At some point in our development (early adolescence?) we become self-consciously aware of our bodies and begin to imagine what we must look like from the outside. The inner-witness, or critic develops. In teaching dance to children, I've noticed that somewhere between the ages of 9-12 most kids become inhibited and start trying to look "cool". This leads to restriction in the body. We learn to contain ourselves both emotionally and physically. As we age, the adult body can become dulled and less spontaneous.

In 'Holistic Bodywork for Performers' Janet Free and Nicky Ramsay elaborate on this habit we develop of "editing" ourselves:

"As we grow, we subconsciously pick up patterns of behaviour by adopting standardized body language and so pressures of conformism can tend to affect the freedom of our body movement.
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It is often in adolescence as we develop sexual self-consciousness that we try to protect ourselves by concealing the self.
...
A sense of inadequacy and disconnection from self can often be made worse by media images dictating how we should look.
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These attitudes are an inevitable part of social survival that we can eventually learn to unravel in order to rediscover our own authentic body expression.
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There are many ways of helping ourselves to get back into our bodies when we are feeling disconnected or stuck. We could choose to take an exuberant, playful approach, helping us to release energy and reconnect with our inventive, spontaneous, gleeful selves".

Returning to my senses and moving authentically through life is a daily practice. And it's rarely easy. I find riding the TTC (for hours everyday to and from work) especially restrictive. I'll have the desire/need to move my body, but social pressure dictates that I sit passively and not stand out in the crowd. I need daily time and space to move however I please. To reintegrate my body/mind/spirit through conscious breathing and movement. Time to enjoy the sweetness of my body in motion!

I love the Mary Oliver poem "Wild Geese", especially the part about 'letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves':

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

--Mary Oliver

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Image from Picasso PRO`s Talking Movement performance, November 11th, 2012, Al Green Theatre, Toronto. Photo by barryroden.com

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