Chuck on Dancing: Rush Rush Rush

It’s easy to see a lot of dancers just rushing from one thing to the next. Running around one pose or trick to the next as if it were a race. It cheapens the dance. Isn’t it wonderfully juicy to see people slow down, take some time, be in the moment. Even the most basic of step can take on magical powers. To do that it takes focus, courage, strength, and visualization.

Focus

It is said that our society over values the narrow objective focus. Narrow in that we are trained to focus on one thing, objective in that we are trained to focus detached and judging. The opposite is a diffuse immersed focus. Changing your focus to me more diffuse, being aware of all of your surroundings when you dance – not just you or your partner, but the audience, the room itself, the subtleties of the music. And integrating yourself with your observation and surroundings.

Take a round to practice your dancing with diffuse immersed focus.

Courage

Many of your fellow dancers will be rushing through their choreography. It will be distracting. It will take focus and courage to maintain your course, to do what is right for yourself in your own moment.

Strength

Strength in holding on to the moment. To resist the tension that surrounds us to do something. To work against it, to use it to our advantage. In acting, in general you deliver lines that someone else has written. The next line has already been determined, much like the next step in your choreography. But that doesn’t mean we should just deliver it. In Meisner technique acting there is a set of exercises to simply wait. Wait for tension to build before the line is delivered. How many people in our society wait for that moment of awkwardness when two people are alone. Often one person will say something just to break the tension of the moment. But what if you waited, let the tension build a bit more.

What if the next time you’re with your lover and your practiced this. Right before the kiss, you just waited, hovered inches away from their face. Stared into their eyes and paused. Your breath mixing with theirs in the space, feeling the warmth of their breath, letting the tension slowly build, letting the hairs start to stand on end.

We all know what is going to happen next. But the WHEN is now a question. If there’s enough tension then even the HOW and the IF start to come into question.

What if all your dancing, every moment of it, had that kind of magnetic power and tension. (For that matter what if all your lovers knew to do this…)

Visualization

People have a natural curiosity and wonder about what other people are thinking. We can tell right away when someone is just drifting or focused on something. What if you used that to your advantage. What if you thought about what that next moment would be. Picture it in your mind, let the natural tension between what you want and what exists now build.