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The
Daimon Dance
Dance
Club Newsletter | Daimon Soul
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Understanding Dance
as Mystechal Metaphor
There is a deep
concern at this time about the growing level
of illiteracy
amongst our young people, and an even more
urgent cry to attend
to a diminished interest in math and
science.
But it is also a
given that the young in general have
relatively little
interest in the models of society that their
elders tend to
thrust on them. Those of us who no longer
consider ourselves
to be in the bloom of youth were little
different in the
wildness of our youth.
Although many young
people are deeply concerned with the state
of the world that is
being handed to them, I think it fair to
say that much of
their despairs and aspirations are explored,
not through the
gilded halls of learning, but through the
realm of music and
its embodiment in dance.
In this Tower of
Babel world of diversity, there are few
universal languages
that can be understood and shared worldwide.
Dance and music are
two such gems. They create bonds of
interaction even
amongst the most diverse of peoples,
ideas and
cultures. The lion and the lamb will stop their
squabbling as long
as the music continues to play, as
long as the rhythm
continues to lure and flow. These twin
flames are truly
god-sparked gifts of interconnectivity. In
the arena of music
and dance, mental concepts and word
constructs are not
as important as the experience of the
rhythmic singing in
the blood, as the harmonic beating of the
music’s heart.
Particle and wave unite.
One of the saddest
features of our times is that many adults
have forgotten how
to dance. They’ve grown stone deaf to the
rhythm that vibrates
in every step of life’s encounters. How
can the youth, to
whom music and dance is so important,
(just look at the
popularity of the music and dance reality
shows) be expected
to trust the socail models set up by
elders with no
rhythm in their soul. Such models would reflect
their creator's
resistance to movement, flexibility and flow.
Our society seems to
have forgotten the dance of give and
take, the breath of
wave and step, the template of forward and
back, in its
interactions not only with others in our society,
but with other
cultures of the world as well. We have grown
rusty in our
practice, and our stiffened flexibility is
reflected in our
relationships as they dissolve into fighting
competitions at
worst and wrestling matches at best.
It is time to
re-member some hard gained wisdom from our own
elders, something
that we so carelessly tossed aside, just as
our children are
tossing aside their interest in the gods of
our age, math and
science.
Our ancestors viewed
dance as sacred. It wasn’t just some form
of social
entertainment or physical honing but rather a way of
ritualistically
engaging the dualities of living, the tension
between god and man,
so as to refrain from having to do so in
the every day world
of personal particular.
We can use this
template as a model to recognize how our young
people engage with
their own dualistic tensions of living.
Listen to their
music, feel its beat. To better understand
them, we need to
engage with the rhythm of their soul. Their
soul cry, patterns
of hope and despair, are deeply encoded in
their music. Watch
as they embody this knowledge in the dance,
physically
interacting with this rhythmical tension so as to
bring the embedded
patterns into blood, bone and cell. In this
way they are able to
contain the experiential feeling-tone
of give and take
with these wilder patterns inside the dance,
and as a result step
beyond the need to engage with those
particular
polarities in actual life.
Dances such as these
bear uncanny resemblance to ceremonial
dances of earlier
cultures. On top of this, they borrow
heavily from our
scientific insigts about self-organizing
systems. Many formal
patterns exist, but the dance itself,
through choices made
by the dancers, stabilizes first into one
pattern before
dissolving into another, stepping through
a cycle of pattern
waves.
Dances of this kind
allow participants to explore the
boundary between
personal preferences, those of others,
and the organization
of the Dance as a whole. They offer
insights into
patterns of organization in which sacrifices
made to others could
be compensated by returning benefits.
They illustrated the
art of "winning" and "losing". People
are able to feel
when they should lead and whemn they should
follow, by following
the calling of the Dance. THe whirl of
the dance kept
opposing elements within the larger pattern
of the whole.”
As it is in the
dance, so it is with life. Life is
vibration, a flow,
an ever changing river of possibility. A
diverse multiplicity
of patterning engages with us every day.
How can we relate to
this overwhelm without dissolving into
the bickering of me
against you battles. We can do this by
keeping these
opposing elements contained inside the
protective whirl of
the dance. We can do this by engaging each
other in a sacred
partnership of give and take, leader and
led. If we remember
the Dance as a Mystech(a combination of
mystery and
technique) Metaphor for all our interactions, we
can engage with our
life tensions in a safe and contained way
rather than
grappling with them in life’s actual existence.
We can use Dance
like the ancient Greeks used theater, as our
actual cauldron for
holding the pieces together while we are
in the process of
alchemizing into something altogether new.
C. Charis Coyle is a soul dancer.
She is a life coach, author,
storyteller, mythologist, performer and all around choreographer
of the eclectic and unusual. The Daimon Dance (website and
newsletter) is her praise song dedicated to the inner partner,
her way of re-membering the soul’s inner dream. The purpose of
the Daimon Dance is to gently remind each and every one of us
the importance of periodically recharging our connection to our
inner dancing star. www.daimondance.com
Copyright @2006 Mystecha
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