In February 2017 I taught a single 75-minute-long class to a group of 30 students at a dance school famous for 'not being too brainy about dancing.' The group was extremely diverse, more diverse than any group of students I've ever had a chance to meet at the University. I bring this example as a way of comparison because the University prides itself on diversity. The students at the University however are in my experience much more alligned in their understanding of what 'dancing' is, than the students at the dance school I just taught at.

The students at the dance school I just taught at were generally very welcoming of the work I proposed even if the majority looked at me with disbelief when I first mentioned fascia, connective tissue. (The class was supposed to be focused on 'touch,' and was given to the students as a part of a dance analysis course on sensing.) Only a couple of faces remained reflective of deliberate resistance throughout the class, which I thought was a tremenduous achievement given my fairly deserved reputation of being 'quite brainy about my dancing.' (If 'brainy' means 'curious about language and thinking' as much as about 'movement analysis and aesthetic value of dancing.')

The class I ended up teaching worked on contextualising brain-power aka thinking to dancing by alluring to the following allignment: What if thinking-to-speaking (language) could be paralleled to moving-to-dancing (language)?*  *more on this in another idoc, i'll paste a link here once I creat it.

By the time the class needed to be finished many more questions were asked than could be answered, played with, stretched, collapsed, danced, debunked, encouraged, etc. Many students asked questions in the corridor after class, many wanted to be sent reading lists, links to documentaries, etc. The whole expeirence left me without a sense of closure. By the time I was home, I decided to write the students a letter to be found in the 'who wants to know more' file I prepared for them. In writing this letter I wished to provide the students (and myself) with a sense of closure regarding the 'dreading of brainyness' by stating that there is no such thing as 'living without the brain.' There is only a 'making of a choice to disregard brain-like activities,' knowing that each choice made beares consequences on what's possible. I wanted the students to be aware of one thing and one thing only – that whatever choice they are making, they are in fact making it. A choice.

Here is the letter, in full.

ps The letter was, as some other notes were in the prepared file, proposed not as a 'warning coming from the wise and experienced' but a 'thinking exercise,' to be considered. Playfully.

*

I think of any sensing, this includes touching, as of a bodily capacity to become conscious of some sort of stimuli. To be conscious is always relating to the capacity of the nervous system to process information (to sense stimulation, to pass the information on to the brain, to interpret the sensation as meaningful or not, etc.). The capacity of the nervous system to process information can always be thought in relation to thinking (be that thinking conscious or subconscious). And thinking, in turn, can always be thought in relation to choice making (be that choice making conscious or subconscious).

And so sensing (touching), I think, is inevitably relating to choice-making. (One of my favourite questions today is – how can I train my body-mind into making conscious choices? Which is especially important to me when I’m dancing. On stage. In front of an audience.)

The particular choice I’m thinking of when thinking about touching, is actually two choices – the choice to touch, and the choice to be touched. For example. The choice to touch the floor with your foot. And the choice to be touched by the floor as your touching the floor with your foot. OR the choice to touch the lower arm of your fellow student. And the choice to have your arm touched, your skin touched, your fascia touched by your fellow student.

I see these choices as your choices. You chose how far you go, how deeply you engage with different tasks, different proposals, different thinking exercises. You choose how far you go, how many things you learn, how much information you process for yourself.

Naturally, the farther you decide to go, the more feedback you get, the more sensitive your body-mind becomes, the more you learn. The trick is – the farther you decide to go, the higher the risk you are taking. And the higher the risk, the more temporarily uncomfortable your experience might be. (What if you get touched so deeply, you get emotional? What if you get so emotional, your body goes limp? You start crying? Would you want to expose yourselves before your peers in such a way? Would you want any of your peers to expose themselves before you in such a way? These questions might be abstract, but they are important questions to consider. I think.)

This is why it’s so important that you stay in charge, that it’s a choice that you are making every step of the way. If you’re making a choice, you are staying in charge. If you’re in charge, then you can turn the energy you are getting from the emotion you are experiencing into energy that drives your dancing, your art-making, your curiosity and your studies. For example. If you’re in charge, you can also turn your fear and your discomfort away from judgement, and towards encouragement, curiosity and support.

Anyway. Something to think about. :)