Moving Through Space

Last night I took a three hour dance workshop with Margie Gillis. She speaks a language that's sometimes difficult to understand, but her ideas are amazing. We worked a lot on moving through space. Her mantra was, "You know what you know. But what DON'T you know?" In other words, when you move into a shape or in a way that feels familiar to you, try to move instead to a shape or line that is not familiar to you. What she pulled out of us was quite wonderful.

We danced with our bodies flowing with red, then with blue, and then with yellow. We danced allowing our thumbs, then our cheeks, then our bellies to lead us. We danced with ribbons flowing out of all our extremities. We played and wiggled and jiggled and even did something called the primeval blob.

About an hour into the class, I started to feel very nauseous. Shortly after that, Margie made a comment that if any of us were feeling sick, we should congratulate ourselves, because it was a good thing. She went on to explain that our muscles were working to release any tensions and emotions that our bodies were holding on to. That release was what was causing the nausea.

All in all, a truly interesting way to spend a Tuesday evening. And I'm very much looking forward to seeing her perform on Thursday night.