The respect I have for dance as an invisible force displayed visibly … is the same respect I have for creation and divinity itself. We are that and our bodies are our temple of expression; sharing the emotional, the psychic, and the energetic. Music is our partner as much as any one including our own body.
Dance became the medium through which I learned life, channeled the divine, healed and found my inner voice. The path in living dance as a primary commitment; has become my teacher. Meditation my other anchor in life since I was 18, and the teachers who guided my path in that allowed those philosophies to be lived through my path in dance. This journey of realizing is what I’ll share here.
Certainly there was a fascination with dance early on for me. My favorite movies were Flash Dance and Dirty Dancing. I loved dancing with my best friend to my favorite Whitney Houston song “I Wanna Dance With Someone Who Loves Me”, and I remember copying MTV dance videos and especially loved Michael Jackson. So my mother put me in dance classes. I remember feeling strong and feeling embodied. That gave me a foundation and familiarity with that flow and freedom of movement.
In my high school years I wasn’t in dance classes however my desire to party was always grounded in wanting to dance whether at house parties or bigger events. I found my freestyle, the freedom in just channeling feeling and expression of that creative energy we are; that surrounds us within and beyond music.
Realizing my passion for dance is why I chose to major in a BFA in modern dance. That was the beginning of a more serious commitment to dance as a spiritual path. Certainly my choice to major in dance wasn’t practical, rather straight from the heart.
Simultaneously I started studying Dharma and practicing meditation. This understanding of training my mind, in compassion, the 6 perfections and wisdom became part of my training my body in dance school. Intention and awareness was much more conscious in my dance training because of my daily practice and inspiration from Buddhism. While I had a more pure faith in enlightenment as our potential and purpose in life.. I had potent empowerment and healing from dance training and expression. I was finding my strength and feeling the health of emoting with my whole being. Clearing past trauma for sure. I knew everyone needed this in some medium. I knew everyone was inside at a desk or sitting far too much to be good for health. My wish in alignment with practicing Bodhichitta was feeling that compassion for all beings to be free.. to dance fully embodied!
Eventually I realized that my passion for this freedom was captured more so by improvisation and street dance forms, freestyle in nature. Loving popping and breaking and was so inspired by a bboy/bgirl battle event I saw in Chicago I was ready to commit to retrain myself and become a bgirl. I decided not to do a 5th year to complete my BFA in Dance. I didn’t identify with being on stage and dancing choreography or needing a degree in dance. I turned down a full scholarship and moved to NYC to break dance. I went to a Women’s Hip Hop Summit north of where I lived and got a recommendation to train with Ken Swift in NYC. So there I moved and lived from 2005 till 2018 at least.
A bit of posturing BK represent!
Little did I know Ken Swift was legendary and a pioneer in the art of breaking, teaching, judging competitions and traveling worldwide. Kenny took me under his wing and felt like family. His fame in footwork became my foundation. Living in NYC being a part of the bboy/bgirl culture with Kenny as my teacher was a fortunate, inspiring yet not easy journey. So grateful for the support and guidance from an elder. Being a female in a predominantly male art form, Kenny was protective of me. I felt that inclusion and yet felt on my own. I was inspired by everyone and surrounded by so much talent. So much posturing too.. yet not to be taken too seriously, was an art. I did have other much needed and appreciated influencers/teachers in my journey with Breaking. BBoy Zoob (IG zoobtron ) long time partner and BBoy WestRok personal trainer extraordinaire ( IG rokforcefusion ) were certainly dedicated to my training helping shape my strength, skills, individuality and sense of community. I developed my own style and moves however didn’t really have the desire to battle or compete and win or even really make money with dance. I did sometimes anyway, just wasn’t my drive.
Now I’ll share more of my inner journey which made a major shift by the time I was pregnant with my son.. The role Dharma philosophies and my meditation practice played in how dance provided the space for realization is something I am so grateful for….
McCarren Park practice.
Featured this photo of me in the NY times article. Photographer Piotr Redlinski
The passion I felt and dedication to training in the art of breaking was the ideal sense of self mastery. While I knew self mastery was more in relation to wisdom, I still had this Earthly ideal that being embodied as a Bgirl was the most awe inspiring thing I could achieve to actualize my potential. I had full faith and life commitment in my mind and I wanted to learn airflares! Knowing also, Buddha taught about the role of desire leading to attachment and that causing suffering. I became aware that most people’s life commitments, major mission/goal in life were also expressions of their attachment thereby being a source of suffering. Fundamentally the self, sense of self is quite at the root of this ignorance blocking the wisdom of non-duality. Being masterful as a bgirl was my biggest attachment, and unique to other achievable goals was recreating my self and body. So it was how I measured my self, and was a cause of suffering consequently. I didn’t experience this in dance school or ever before around my dancing. Nervous fear around performing in cyphers and self criticism overall directed at my practice were effects of the attachment. Fortunately I was aware of this and so became the journey of healing my mental thoughts and feelings sprung out of attachment; with dance being the image and practice to mindfully show me all this. I was grateful for dance as my teacher to illuminate these habits. I saw how my inner critic was grasping at the attachment of being something more and how this criticism destroyed my motivation to practice and create. Yet I was determined and practiced 3 to 4 times a week for the majority of 8 years till I was pregnant.
My Dharma teachers and training supported the grander vision of patience, joyful effort, unlimited potential, and non-attachment. So I did eventually make peace with my inner critic, let go of such a hold and agenda, let go of this need to achieve all the skills, and began to see more of my gifts in the healing arts (massage, reiki, meditation) and chose to train as a life coach. The letting go, allowed me to express more in the cypher and judge myself less, enjoy the flow and community. The letting go let me see that other things were important to me and that I was too confined by being devoted as I was, to one dance form. I found my freestyle again. I found that essence of me just dancing however I felt. Less strategy and form, more channeling. Fortunately I was able to realize all this and then shortly after discovered I was pregnant. A new life in me was being born and a fresh sense of what matters in life. My son certainly inspired self sacrifice, a whole new dimension of love deepened.
Dance is healing like a medicine journey without the medicine, just pure creative source expression. Holding that space for others and sharing in that space with others is truly divine alignment. Finding my home within Edance; a community that honors this purity and rawness we all can channel. I’m so grateful to be in a place that birthed Edance. Big Eye!!
The Breakthrough Dance Story Immersion was an inspiration from all the creative energy at the time of my pregnancy and I know we can all rebirth ourselves through dance drawing from meditation to source the empowerment of our wisdom. Mahalo)))))))
