Dance Addict

Can you become addicted to dance? I suppose anything could enter your sense of normal far enough so that you would miss it. All I know is that when I don't dance, I don't feel right. I start to feel twitchy in my muscles and I start to become short with the people around me. August break is, I feel, a necessary component to maintaining a dance company. Without some recuperation, we would fail to refresh our commitment to the work. Absence gives perspective. Nevertheless, I am jonesing for rehearsals already.

I spent the morning in the studio, happily tumbling through the air, skittering across the ground like a leaf. I practice dancing to renew my sensual awareness of both body and space. I practice dance to prepare for performances, during which I have little time to concentrate on my sensations, being occupied with sequences. (I aim to have brought my body along already by the time I hit the stage.) I practice dance because I depend on my body when creating choreography. I am not one who sees movement fully formed. I see traces, possibilities, but I have to put my body into the role of the dancer in order to craft movement. Balanchine could look and know; I have to dance it. I practice dancing in order to relate to my students, who take technique classes several times a week. For them, dance is a living art, not a theoretical construction. I practice dancing because it feels so fucking good!

All of this raises the question of whether I'm any good at it. I'm not sure it matters. I'm not Baryshnikov, but I still see improvement, even now when, at 37, I might reasonably expect to be slowing down. I guess I have slowed down, though. As I explore the range of movement I sometimes slow right down to stillness.

Come see what Human Landscape Dance does. On Wednesday March 23, 2011, we'll perform on the Kennedy Center Millenium Stage at 6pm, free. On Saturday July 9, 2011 at 8pm, and Sunday July 10, 2011 at 7pm, we'll perform in The Washington DC/Philadelphia Exchange at Dance Place, a shared concert with Philadelphia dance troupe Anne-Marie Mulgrew and Dancers Co. This is the second half of our artistic exchange: our inaugural performance took place in May 2010 in Philadelphia.