Category Archives: Door to the Past

Footage Friday: Muscle Memory

This is the third video in the creative collaboration series that my friend Marsha and I are working on (you can see the first 2 here and here).

When Marsha sent me this piece, I had to smile. It took me back more than a decade.

Long, long ago, when we were teenagers (I think…I’m bad with chronology), Marsha and I were both training intensively in our chosen art forms. She practiced increasingly complex and beautiful pieces of music on the piano, and I practiced increasingly complex and beautiful steps in ballet class.

And when we hung out at her house, we had a ritual of going into the play room where the piano was. She would play through her pieces, and I would stand in the small rectangle of open space behind her and dance. I’ve lost a lot of memories from my childhood, but this one remains a treasured favourite.

Marsha went home over Easter weekend, and she recorded this piece on the very same piano she used to play on when we’d dance and play together. And this video is my response.

I call this piece “Muscle Memory” because I started out with the idea of doing a very “balletic” dance (and you can see how the dance begins and ends that way). I wanted to see if I could still capture the essence and feeling of the dances I used to do in the play room, having not taken a ballet class in 8 years.

I think I managed it…but it wasn’t very comfortable (physically as well as emotionally—the inside of my right knee did NOT enjoy my attempts at turnout). And I couldn’t sustain it for the whole piece. I still like the end result, though. It’s more Meg-now than Meg-then, but it still, I hope, pays homage to the young girls in the play room.

Thank you, Marsha, for a beautiful piece, and for the great memories. <3

…What if?

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I’m starting to think that I actually had my dream calling figured out when I was 26.

In the span of a year, I had discovered ecstatic dance and taken a Reiki Healing Dance™ course and a Kripalu DansKinetics® teacher training course. I was 100% grounded in this new, free, intuitive, healing dance modality. I felt powerful and free. And then my old teacher (yes, that old teacher) asked me to teach modern dance to her senior students.

…in hindsight, it’s probably a good thing that she never officially paid me for my time, because I certainly didn’t teach what she was expecting.

Of the three students I taught, two were girls I’d known when I was one of the senior girls and they were just six and eight years old. I knew what they were experiencing in their ballet classes—the endless grind of repetitive exercises, the screaming and snapping, the feelings of helplessness, the barely-contained rage.

I knew because I had lived it.

…I needed someone like me SO badly…

And I set out to give them what I would have wanted when I was in their shoes: I made it my mission to remind them why they loved to dance. And that there was more to dancing than what they were used to.

I did teach some modern technique, I suppose. And I used elements of the trainings I’d just taken, a bit. But mostly, I just set the stage and let them do the rest. I allowed the classes to be whatever the girls needed. Together, we lay on the floor and envisioned glowing bubbles of safety and love. We followed the breath into beautiful dances. We grounded and oozed. We pushed and pulled. We played games. We followed music into beautiful unknown spaces.

Occasionally I would catch my old teacher’s disapproving glares through the windows as we danced. But it didn’t matter. The girls were lost in the dance. They were glowing and grinning. They were safe. It. Was. Glorious.

Later, the girls were split up, and I taught one of them one-on-one. I’d known her since she was little, and our classes (if you can call them that) quickly morphed into something else entirely. We would sit and chat about whatever happened to be going on with her at the time, sometimes for half the class time. I would give her any insight I could. And then we would open up to the dance. We danced shapes, textures, elements and emotions. We went outside and found beautiful things to portray through movement. We played with oracle cards and energy work. We made our dance into a healing thing, a tool for transformation, a safe means of expression.

I still look back on that time as a major highlight of my 20s. I was in my element. I was connected. I was making a difference. I believed so passionately in my power to help that it brought tears to my eyes. And I saw the effects of my work every time the girls walked into my class.

Ever since then, I’ve been longing to get back to that place of service, of magic, of belief. But I told myself it was impossible. That I only managed it then because of my history with the girls and our shared rebellion. That I had to find a new, “more realistic” dream, fit inside a box, get the Certifications® and the Trainings™ and follow the Rules©.

But now I’m starting to wonder…What if?

What if I could build upon those foundations and create something unique, personal, and deeply healing? What if it could really help people? And not just downtrodden ballet-dancers-in-training, but anyone—trained or not—who felt called to dance?

What if I had it figured out way back then, and all I needed was the confidence to translate it beyond the walls of that studio?

What if? What if?

Even entertaining the possibility and asking the question is progress.

Dance 5: (Don’t) Stop

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When I was in my early 20s, my friends and I used to have awesome parties. We would get together at an apartment or a rented cottage, and we would drink and eat and hang out. OK, we still do those things, but the thing we don’t do any more is dance. We used to dance for hours. We had a special “parties” playlist, and every song had its own schtick. It was fabulous.

And then it changed. Dancing became something we did only at weddings. I don’t know why that happened…did we get bored of the same songs over and over? Were we less fit? More self-conscious? Just not interested? All of the above?

I miss those parties. I was “the dancing girl,” first to start and longest to move, never afraid to get up and dance alone. When did that stop?

This past New Years I was determined to revisit my fabulous younger dancing self. I was going to get up and dance, dammit, regardless of everyone else.

Did I?

Sort of. A little. Self-consciously. In the corner.

I couldn’t access that fabulous dancing diva. She couldn’t get out from under the layers of “not _____ enough.” Not fit enough, not strong enough, not confident enough. And also “too ____.” Too old, too fat, too unfit. Too likely to hurt myself. Too easily mockable. And what would my friends think?

…writing this out, it makes me sad. I’m not any of those things, not really. I’m fit and strong enough to dance, at least for a bit (and that will help me dance longer next time). I’m confident enough to post this video online, which has to be scarier than dancing in front of people I know and love, right? And there’s no such thing as “too fat to dance.”

The hurting-myself fear is a whole separate issue with its own complex layers, but the bottom line is that I will be OK, especially if I build my fitness up gradually. People who want to mock me can eff off. And it’s not like my friends have never seen me dance before.

So there.

This video is dedicated to the fabulous dancer-at-parties I used to be. The one I peeked at last New Years. The one I am dedicated to excavating fully by next New Years.

Want to dance with me?

What Are Your Awesome Stories? Here’s one of mine…

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It’s late fall here in Nova Scotia, and the weather (apart from some freakishly warm and much-appreciated days this week) is getting chilly. The other night I was getting dressed for a coffee date with a friend of mine, and I pulled out a scarf.

This scarf.

And it made me smile. Because the scarf has a great story behind it.

Over the summer between my first and second year, Skidmore College’s campus sprouted an art museum. The Tang museum opened its doors in October with an exhibit called S.O.S. Scenes of Sounds, and it featured all kinds of exhibits that made noise.

I don’t really remember being all that excited about the museum or the exhibition. At the time I’m pretty sure we all thought the museum was kind of funny looking. But then one day before the opening, this man came to watch our improvisation (dance) class. Our teacher told us that his name was Nick Cave and that he was looking for some dancers to wear his sound-making costumes during the museum opening.

So we danced. We danced our hearts out. And he watched. And at the end of class he picked 3 students to wear his costumes. I was one of them.

On the day of the opening, when the museum was packed, we got into costume and went outside. We started out on this big exterior staircase leading down to the main exhibit room. We walked down slowly, wearing our full-body soundsuits. Very slowly people began to notice our approach. And then we entered this narrow area enclosed between two walls (and doors) of glass, and we just went wild, improvising all kinds of movement in the giant, rustling costumes as the museum-goers watched. It was incredible.

I wish I had photos or video of us dancing in costume. Youtube wasn’t even invented back then (…I don’t think), and believe me, I’ve looked anyway. The closest idea I can give you to what this was like was this:

Like I said, not a video of me. But you get the idea. WILD.

Several weeks later, I got a package in the mail. It contained a note from Nick Cave thanking me for dancing for him and presenting this scarf (from his fashion line) as a token of gratitude. I’ve treasured it ever since.

When I went looking for video of these soundsuits, I found out that he went on to make many, many more of them. He’s had exhibits around the world. Hundreds of people have seen them and performed in them. And I danced in one of them 11 years ago, right near the beginning. That’s pretty effing cool.

I think we all have stories like this one…not necessarily about dancing, but about a really awesome experience and a memory we treasure. Sometimes I feel like we don’t like to talk about them because it feels too much like tooting our own horn.

But you know what? Forget that…I say let’s share our awesome stories proudly. Let’s tell the world. Because the world needs to know that cool things like this happen to “normal people” (whatever that means). And stories are important. Your story is important.

What’s your awesome story? And don’t tell me you don’t have one.

Dancing With the Past: It’s never too late to finish what you started

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This is a piece of music from the soundtrack of the movie Pi. The year after I graduated from high school, I began to choreograph a solo to it. It was the most technically challenging and choreographically intricate piece I’d ever done. I worked on it for hours. And then I showed it to the wrong person.

And their comment was “Huh…it’s kind of sloppy, isn’t it?”

…I never worked on it again.

13 years later, I’m still sad about this. I’ve been through all the stages on this one: anger at the commenter, insecurity about my abilities, feigned indifference, anger at myself for giving up, and sadness at the entire situation.

Here’s what I know now: Of COURSE the piece was sloppy. I’d only just started…I only had the first third of it done. But it could have been great. I know it could have been great. I remember the very beginning, and it was amazing.

But I forgot all of this. I was so overwhelmed with pain and self-doubt that I gave up on it. I didn’t stand in my own power. And I have regretted it for more than a decade.

I am not alone in this experience.

Do you have a project you loved but stopped working on? Do you have a project you’re nursing tenderly and worried about sucking at?

Just do it. Trust your vision. Ride the wild donkey. Finish your project, no matter how many people tell you it sucks (or, alternatively, don’t show anyone until you’re done, that could work too). Trust me, “doing it anyway” sucks WAY less than regretting something for 13 years.

It’s NEVER too late.

I thought it was too late for me to finish this piece because I can’t physically do the dance steps any more. But there are always possibilities. I have a friend who can do the steps for me. It is never too late to finish what you started.

I’m going to do it.
You can do it too.

Please, just do it. Create that thing that calls out to you. Listen to it, bring it out into the world. The world needs your creations. Do it. Don’t let it hang over you forever.

Falling Down

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Up until the end of Grade Eleven, I had very little experience with modern dance. I’d taken one term of modern classes, and I’d found the technique interesting but slightly uncomfortable. And then I went to Walnut Hill…and everything changed.

This technique was completely different —it flowed. It was all about breath and weight and swinging the body like a pendulum. And it felt completely right on my body. I can’t express in words how much I adored (STILL adore) this style. I took every class I could get…and 13 years later, I still remember half the warmup exercises.

This is the only real example photo I have…but you can kind of see the swing and get a sense of the release, I think.

I have a great memory of a modern class where we were doing a difficult combination across the floor. I threw myself into the final turn…and fell on my butt. I got up, bright red, and looking at the teacher in desperate apology for “failing.” She smiled at me, turned to the class and said “See? Meg threw so much energy into the dance that she lost control. And that’s good. I want you all to attack this phrase with as much passion as Meg.” (OK, fine, I just paraphrased, but you get the idea). She gave me a suggestion about form and how to harness the energy more efficiently and told me to try again.

And suddenly I was on top of the world. I ran back to try the combination again, and this time I danced with all my might…and didn’t fall.

How often do we make mistakes and then beat ourselves over the head with them? How often do we avoid trying something for fear of making a mistake or failing (however we define that failure)?

What would it be like if we could approach our own dances —physical, mental, or emotional— the way that my modern teacher approached my dance? What would that look like to you?

To me it would look like trying 100%, really leaping in with all of my might. It would look like expressing myself with passion and flowing through the movements and not worrying so much about the “scary” parts…just…MOVING JOYFULLY.

It would look…a little scary at the start…but pretty darn awesome once I got going.

And if I fell…at least I’d know that I was dancing with all of my might.

Dancing Through Life

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I’m still recuperating from a Cold From Hades, and I’m doing the Dance of Stillness…but I recently rediscovered this article that I wrote four years ago (!!!), and I just had to share. Every word still rings true for me, and that’s a really great feeling.

Dancing Through Life

You are a dancer.

How do you respond to those four simple words? An incredulous shake of the head? Thinking “Yeah right, you’ve never seen me dance!”? Or how about “well, I take dance classes…” A few will respond with a “yes, yes I am!” –and if you did, I salute you!

Regardless of your response to these four words…they’re true. You are a dancer –everyone is. You don’t need to take lessons, be model-thin, or be under twenty-five years old. We can all dance –everyone, regardless of age, gender, or shape. Movement is our birthright. We were born dancers and we remain dancers all our lives –sometimes we just forget. Fear, rules, and judgements get in the way.

These days we are taught to think of dance as performing a series of steps that conform to a certain technique. These techniques have established dance as an important art form, but they have also made people forget about its true nature.

Dance has become black and white: you either perform the steps “correctly” or “incorrectly”; you either dance “well” or you dance “badly.” We watch talent shows that reinforce this idea, showing us an endless parade of “wannabe dancers” who dance their hearts out in front of judges, only to leave the stage humiliated and defeated. No wonder so many of us are afraid to move!

But what if we chose to embrace a larger definition of dance, seeing it as a union of body, mind, and soul unique to every one of us? What if the dance stopped being about performer and audience and became solely about the dancer and the music? What if we could step into a space and move however we felt without worrying about what we looked like?

Welcome to the world of healing dance, also known as ecstatic dance.

This is a world we glimpse as children running through fields or twirling until we can’t stand up for dizziness. It’s the world we touch when we’re out at a nightclub with our friends and we stop worrying about how we look, or when we’re in our beloved’s arms and it seems like no one else exists.

It’s a world that contains unlimited sources of joy and unlimited capacity for healing if we can only learn to access it. If we can throw out everything we ever learned about self-consciousness and start again from a place of joy and innocence, we can achieve mind-body connection, an open heart, and increased confidence. We can literally dance through life.

Healing dance is what I do. It’s what I started doing when I was three, dancing around the living room to whatever music I felt like. Since then I’ve spent most of my life exploring “the dance world”: thirteen years of pre-professional ballet training, four years of modern dance and choreography, and experiments with jazz, ballroom, belly dance, and flamenco, but no established style has given me the same unadulterated joy as the dance of Myself. It’s taken me years to realize this.

Healing dance is meditation in motion.

Sometimes my dance is the dance of stillness. Sometimes it’s silly, sometimes it’s sad, sometimes it’s angry, but it is always me. Little by little I’ve learned—am still learning—to let go of my outer (critical) awareness and just be in the movement.

Some days it’s easy. Some days it’s hard. As with any practice, some days resistance takes over and I get caught up in avoidance. But eventually I come back to the dance, back to the breath, back to the movement –back home.

Beginning your own dance practice is easy. You don’t need special clothes, a certain fitness level, or a specific amount of time to practice. All you need is space in a room where you can move without bumping into anything or worrying about being interrupted (unless you feel like inviting others to join you, that is). There is no right or wrong way to start dancing, but you should always warm up a little bit first. Try a short walk, some yoga, or some gentle movement. Your body will thank you!

Because the dance is yours alone I can’t tell you what steps to do or give you a sure-fire routine. But here are two of my favourite ways to start:

I. The dance of the breath:
Standing in the middle of your space, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Feel the movement of your lungs as you breathe in and out. Slowly begin to follow this movement with your body –expanding on the inhale, relaxing on the exhale.

Allow this movement to gradually fill your whole body as you stretch out into space on the inhale and contract small on the exhale. Play with the speed and force of your breaths. See where the dance of the breath takes you.

  II. The dance of joy:
Pick a few of your favourite happy tunes and put them on. Move into your space, close your eyes, and feel the mood soak into you. When you’re ready, let the music move you —dance your joy!

No two dances will be the same. Tailor your practice to suit your mood and your energy level. It’s ok to just lie on the floor and follow your breath if that’s all you feel up to. Don’t be afraid to be silly, bizarre, ungraceful, or awkward—be open to whatever comes.

Soon you will find that the dance comes more easily to you. You’ll hear a song on the radio and find yourself dancing along. You’ll move in new ways without fear of being seen. You’ll begin to find joyful moments—joyful movements—in each day.