The Magical Adventures in Belly Dancing Year One
I nervously walked into my first American Tribal Belly Dance Class a year ago. I completed the first series, awkwardly. My body did not move where I wanted or told it to, my feet tripped over the other and I did not "feel" the beat. I am in my late thirties and had not taken a dance class or music class in my life. I am a big fan of music, but I did not understand it's structure, even the basics, the rhythm, which I am now learning. I love dancing, moving my body to music, getting lost in movement in the emotion. Dancing is emotion, energy in motion. Dancing is magic and art.
Now, a year later, here I am two months away from my first choreographed performance for a large party. I had the pleasure of improvisational belly dancing in front of a large amount of people many times and some smaller audiences too. I have been taking classes from a amazing teacher who is patient with my lack of knowledge and experience. I dance with a beautiful group of women. I am also learning to play the drums to help with my dancing and I found a new passion, drumming. 
I am like a the fool in tarot, I am a beginner, open to learning, humble to the experience. When dancing I unite with the All and burst with Infinite Love. I have changed my mind, body and spirit in the process. Dancing has opened me up to myself. My body speaks to me. My hips and body carry information, it carries my history and every female and human before me. Some of this information and emotions I have buried and hid from myself. I am learning to release what no longer serves me through dance. I dance for all women, for all people, for the planet and for the All. Dancing is my ritual, prayer, and medicine. I wish everyone could experience the ecstatic pleasure and bliss that I feel when it is just me and the rhythm. Dance with me, come feel the magic.
This Dance Is A Prayer
by Zola Dubnikova
This Dance is a prayer. A prayer for the Earth and therefore a prayer for the Women.
This is a call for the Women to know and believe in the Holiness of their Bodies, the Sacredness of their Dance and the Power of their Voice.
A prayer for all the women who do not express themselves, who hold themselves back. Who do not know that one power as Creators, as Healers, as Givers os Life.
My prayer is a prayer for Women.
Women who are not allowed to dance and sing or express themselves in any way.
A prayer for men who do not believe women should dance in public.
My dance is the Voice of the Women who are trapped in the life where they have no voice.
My prayer is for young girls who get sold into marriages at eight years old to old men and die in the hands of the culture that permit such atrocities, and continue and continue...
My prayer is for young girls who are sold to sex slavery and contract illness they didn't know existed.
My prayer is for theses girls who never had a chance to be girls.
My prayer is for the men who's unpunished violence and terror against Women and against Earth is permitted in this World.
My prayer is a dance for the Earth.
My prayer is a dance for Women.
My prayer is a calling for the women to Return to the Temple."
A prayer for all of the girls and women currently experiencing these horrific tragedies.
Primitive peoples saw themselves as incarnations of the Great Mother's children; to them, there was no separation between the body and the world, inside and outside, this life and the next: all things were indissolubly united. The "self" was as yet undeveloped; a matriarchal holistic vision reigned. This harmonious relationship to the world can be traced through the early symbols, which in turn gave birth to myths and rituals.
Originally, all rituals were danced; body and mind were set in motion as unity. Through dancing, primitive peoples expressed their natural excitement and deep emotions.
Rituals and their particular dances strengthen the bonds between members of the community, expressed joy and pleasure, or praised life; but also it was through these dances that men and women tried to understand the mystery of life, nature--and above all, birth and death, the greatest mysteries of all. Rituals were therefore used as incantations to further growth on earth, to help the clouds break into rain, or to celebrate acts of fertility.
In matriarchal horticultural and agricultural societies, women secured most of the basics for survival and held key social positions. It was also through women that the ecstatic dances were made into more social events.
A major characteristic of all matriarchal societies was dancing. Dance was more than a passing emotional outburst, beyond even expressive prayer: indeed dancing was the most magical practice of all. Dancing is the oldest and most elementary form of spiritual expression; it is magic in the form of ritual dance. All the other modes of expression that we have come to know by the name of Art have developed from dancing.
Dancing expressed the longing to stretch beyond one's limitations and come closer to the divine. Prayer was all embracing in those days; people did not set any limitation on emotion on feelings as they prayed. The whole body shook with worship, and dance helped them open themselves completely.
It is a sensual instrument that wants to enjoy life in the here and now. By intensifying the moment, dancing facilitates the development and finding of the self beyond any anxieties about the future or burdens from the past. For life is connected with time. It is an active process which requires inner preparation in order to be able to face or bring about outside changes. Dancing, then intense moment of being, opens and reveals this instant to people, thereby giving them the possibility to understand their needs and desires, their "yes and no" with greater clarity.
Dancing has thus completed its transformation from the realm of the sacred to the aesthetic and artistic and back to a joyful, sensual and playful instrument for self discovery. The contents of dancing changed with each phase, always combining with people's immediate physical and spiritual needs. Indeed, the language of dance flows over the socially coded body, and it uses a different logic that can be understood through sensual awareness. Leaving oneself through dancing to enter a world beyond one's control and beyond the personal level- almost flowing between the inner and outer world-contributes to a new and different understanding of the tensions between the different poles of existence. By allowing the mind and the senses, the inside and the outside worlds, to unite, without ever allowing either to become dominant, dancing makes it possible for people to set out on unorthodox searches for themselves, and to experience sexual and social issues in their own bodies. Dance is an art and as such it enables whoever practices it to constantly improve their skills and self knowledge. And to know oneself is a human being's most essential duty.
Primitive peoples saw themselves as incarnations of the Great Mother's children; to them, there was no separation between the body and the world, inside and outside, this life and the next: all things were indissolubly united. The "self" was as yet undeveloped; a matriarchal holistic vision reigned. This harmonious relationship to the world can be traced through the early symbols, which in turn gave birth to myths and rituals.
Originally, all rituals were danced; body and mind were set in motion as unity. Through dancing, primitive peoples expressed their natural excitement and deep emotions.
Rituals and their particular dances strengthen the bonds between members of the community, expressed joy and pleasure, or praised life; but also it was through these dances that men and women tried to understand the mystery of life, nature--and above all, birth and death, the greatest mysteries of all. Rituals were therefore used as incantations to further growth on earth, to help the clouds break into rain, or to celebrate acts of fertility.
In matriarchal horticultural and agricultural societies, women secured most of the basics for survival and held key social positions. It was also through women that the ecstatic dances were made into more social events.A major characteristic of all matriarchal societies was dancing. Dance was more than a passing emotional outburst, beyond even expressive prayer: indeed dancing was the most magical practice of all. Dancing is the oldest and most elementary form of spiritual expression; it is magic in the form of ritual dance. All the other modes of expression that we have come to know by the name of Art have developed from dancing.
The dances were used to strengthen sexual energy, to awaken joy, and to praise the mysteries of life. The women danced their dance, a dance that corresponded to their body and expressed all the moods and feelings, all their longings, sufferings, and joys of being a woman. Through their dance, the came into harmony with the universe, abandoning themselves to life and to the divine. What dance could express this more clearly and passionately than belly dance? It can indeed be considered the oldest dance ever by a woman, purely and simply the oldest dance in the whole of civilization.
Dancing expressed the longing to stretch beyond one's limitations and come closer to the divine. Prayer was all embracing in those days; people did not set any limitation on emotion on feelings as they prayed. The whole body shook with worship, and dance helped them open themselves completely.
It is a sensual instrument that wants to enjoy life in the here and now. By intensifying the moment, dancing facilitates the development and finding of the self beyond any anxieties about the future or burdens from the past. For life is connected with time. It is an active process which requires inner preparation in order to be able to face or bring about outside changes. Dancing, then intense moment of being, opens and reveals this instant to people, thereby giving them the possibility to understand their needs and desires, their "yes and no" with greater clarity.
Dancing has thus completed its transformation from the realm of the sacred to the aesthetic and artistic and back to a joyful, sensual and playful instrument for self discovery. The contents of dancing changed with each phase, always combining with people's immediate physical and spiritual needs. Indeed, the language of dance flows over the socially coded body, and it uses a different logic that can be understood through sensual awareness. Leaving oneself through dancing to enter a world beyond one's control and beyond the personal level- almost flowing between the inner and outer world-contributes to a new and different understanding of the tensions between the different poles of existence. By allowing the mind and the senses, the inside and the outside worlds, to unite, without ever allowing either to become dominant, dancing makes it possible for people to set out on unorthodox searches for themselves, and to experience sexual and social issues in their own bodies. Dance is an art and as such it enables whoever practices it to constantly improve their skills and self knowledge. And to know oneself is a human being's most essential duty.
0 comments :
Post a Comment