What do I want for our dancers?

What do I want for our dancers?

I want smooth, deliberate leads who pay attention to their follows and dance with them, not around them, leads who understand that it is their duty and their privilege to be in control of each dance, and who fully comprehend the honor it is for their follow to accord them so much respect and place in them so much trust that she follows their every movement without hesitation. I want leads who can move outside of their lead without losing the ability to lead exactly, who dance with the music, not on top of it, and whose relation to the rhythm is always evident, a subtle connection to its roots. I want them to react to the music without thought, producing authentic movement that is not affected by how they want to look, but by how they feel and how the music and their partner make them feel.

I want follows who are focused wholly and without compunction on their lead, who trust that the lead has control over the dance, and who are content and delighted to create and respond within the dance that is being led, and not attempt to change the lead’s vision completely. I want follows who do not anticipate or ignore their leads, but actually feel how the lead wants them to move and follow it without qualm or boredom, seeing each movement as a new opportunity to dance, regardless of how “exciting” the move is or how many times they have done it before. I want them to feel themselves, the music, and their partner and let those feelings emerge or erupt in their dance without trying to stifle emotions or movements because they feel worry, ego, or self-doubt.

I don’t just want dancers; I want artists. What is a dancer? Humans who live every moment and breathe every emotion on the floor until they are physically and emotionally spent, free of baggage and having expressed everything they were…they are dancers, and they are beautiful. But those who then get up to dance again, tired, depleted, fervent, and find new emotions and new movement where they thought nothing was left with which to dance, who know that the creative well is never truly empty, and who continue to create, passionate about the music and the dance…

Those are artists. They may define themselves as either lead or follow, or may consider themselves both. They may come from any walk of life and any amount of experience. But we know them, and wish to be them, because what they create on the dance floor, whether it is their first dance of the night or their fiftieth, is powerful and beautiful and real, and we leave their presence feeling changed.

I want my dancers to be those artists.

Why aim that high? Being a dancer is impressive by itself, and nothing to laugh at.

We aim there because we can, and we should, and because dancing that passionately makes visible the spark of divinity inside each of us that defines who we are and differentiates us from every other person on earth.