Tales from the Dance Jam #6
The scent of sweating bodies greets you at the door. This isn't about presenting yourself to a crowd who judges you. This is about digging in, getting down, letting go, grunting and whirling, sounding and pounding, rolling and touching, building bridges and destroying concepts.. and it's happening before your very eyes and ears, the moment you enter.
Walk into a crowded room, there's no differentiation between the bodies and the music. What a luscious atmosphere, a healing space, kind people, superb contact improvisation, greeted always with a smile. Safe enough to drift off into your own inner universe while upwards of eighty complete strangers hold the space for you. Risky enough to crack right through the bullshit to the core of yourself, unafraid to let go and ride the waves of ecstacy that begin pouring into your body and soul from Goddess only knows where, your movement a waveguide for its divine manifestation. This is the jam, this is the temple.
Billy writes: "This is the kiva in which I worship, a church where I so often come home. Here, temple priestesses bid me welcome. Here, sacred ground open to me. I am touched. My body moves into prayer." (6/4/99)
I have no expectations for myself or my space when I enter. I have no plan to do ritual, to see God, to launch the sacred psychedelic boat upon the seas of iridescent bliss. I wish only to know that I breathe. What happens when I stay with this is a magickal unfolding of thousands of chaotic fractal patterns that attempt to draw themselves out of their own dimensions and into ours through my hands and feet. Swirl, move, pause, raise, lower, touch the ground, shoot flower petals up to the sky. Fluid, full, and delicious.
Tonight was the first time I've experienced the new "Warm Room," a second studio opened up for creative expression and a "mellower" dance space. Tonight an amazing band played, something something "Brothers," I think. Very fluid jams that melded well with the crowd's dancing, songs that drew us into the lyrics and let us dance across the fretboards, drumskins, and keyboard strokes. At some points it opened itself to a tiny bit of audience participation. I hope in the future folks like Mika will host drum jams there, so I can deliver my Brothers (my drums) to the floor and release their resonance. Pillows strewn about the sides added the perfect "chill room" flavour to our experiences. The second studio was also necessary to smooth out the crowd distribution, because the main studio is getting too crowded these days.
After being sick with a cold, lungs that are slow in the healing, and a period of inactivity, my body was crying to feel its full range of motion again. Tonight provided that and more, and brought in the kind and strange divinities to mutually celebrate our collective dance. I was surprised that I had the energy to really get down and boogie! There was a delightful albeit brief drum jam by the band, and I left the confines of the room behind and shook and moved my body in every which direction it wanted to flop and fly and jiggle and wiggle. Ah! Others were becoming their own lords and ladies of the dance, others mellowed on comfy pillows, still others wallowed on the floor, unable or unwilling to part with the remnants of a contact jam.
The beautiful man factor was high and present tonight :) Always makes for a divine sensory stimulus to accentuate the dance space. (I feel like I just made beautiful men sound like furniture or something.) There were two regulars who engaged in some pretty adroit contact jams, as well as handstands that I could never hope to achieve given my puny arm muscles! Both trim, very fit, long hair, radiant smiles... I'm quite sure they got the message that I was checking them out at any given opportunity, but I wouldn't let myself go there for very long. Dance Jam is a comfortable space in which nothing guards you from being who you really are, expressing yourself in whatever way you see fit, and I kind of feel like staring someone down for too long violates another's sense of comfort. But I can certainly allow myself to take it all in for inspiration!
Another attractive and radiant gent to whom I gave a piece of chocolate.. kept encountering him over the eve, he seemed really in his body and happy to be alive.
Another regular from whom I get an uninterpretable vibe was engaged in all kinds of contact jams with people. Then later I noticed him standing near me, still, taking something in - whether it was the music, or watching a particularly good contact jam, or receiving messages from aliens - who knows.. and I couldn't tell if he was marginally observing me.. I doubted it at first, but he did half turn and look my way once or twice. I wrestled with whether or not to somehow open an interaction, or even suggest some contact improv. Dance Jam is a really funny space like that, I can't read whether people want to talk or otherwise interact with you, and just don't know how to open themselves to it in that space, or whether they're totally having a moment and want nothing more than to be left alone to bathe in it. I figured the latter for this boy at that moment, but not sure if it was valid intution or merely my mind preventing me from making.. contact.
Later on my dear Zahara arrived, and we got into two very fun contact jams that reminded me of that quality of surrender... And now that I think about it, the receptivity of another person's energy. I had an odd moment when she bowed over to the floor and I reached around, without looking, and grabbed her hand. Then I looked, and it wasn't her hand but her foot. I can't describe, and I don't know if it had any significance, but it added something to the jam, some kind of energy circuit that I discovered, had an odd moment with, and then was free to ride as we slid to the floor and she rolled over my back, which popped with delight. Feet to feet we rolled and pushed and pulled and tried to bring ourselves back up without dropping the other. Just in what little contact I've done I'm learning more about supporting my partner while supporting myself, and realizing the interconnect with the Breema principle of the emphasis on the practicioner.
Parting ways, I boogied down a little more and then slid into fluid movements and sweeping gestures of gratitude to existence. Somewhere in there I even got to give a short sitting Breema treatment to someone. The evening was an integrative dance ritual supporting me to know that I exist. Coming to the sacred ground, my body felt what Billy described as moving into prayer. Full moon blessings upon us. What a privilege to have this evening as a reminder of all the things we've already known since before time began.
(posted by Shaggy, 1/22/00)