So much of life ends up coming full circle, doesn’t it? We start our lives curved in on ourselves, dependent on the nurture and care of others, and most of us if we’re allowed to live long enough end up in the same condition before the end. We start unable to eat solid foods and often before the end are back where we started. I had a moment this weekend where I realized I had come full circle in my experience with dance and I was thankful for it.
My journey with dance started in our family living room, my father at the piano my mother close by, and it wasn’t something I decided to do or planned, it just came out of me. What other response could there be to music that was so clearly moving? My mother saw it- the imprint of God’s gift to be nurtured and directed- and signed me up for ballet classes at the local recreation center. Not too many years later that journey continued and refined itself as my family gave me the (costly) gift of dance training at a semi-local pre-professional studio. Hours of drive time, schedule adaptation, so much money were all sacrificed by my family (even grandparents helped at times and my siblings were affected by the costs). I learned technique and tools of artistry. I gained repertoire and performance experience. I didn’t dance in the living room so much anymore, but definitely spent hours there practicing turns and cross training with Pilates and other exercise regimens.
In this season one or twice a Pastor asked about performing at church; Liturgical dance conjured images of large oversized costumes designed to cover the immodesty of a body with lines to create. I thought of liturgical dance as simple, maybe akin to folk art, certainly not the high technical art I was deep in training for- what had I to do with that? I was wanting to glorify God with my art but couldn’t see it as a part of worship.
At this point you may be thinking me a snob- and you probably aren’t wrong…but I think truly I was just young. You know when babies first learn to walk it’s all they want to do? Or that phase of toddlerhood where boys don’t ever walk, only run or trot everywhere? That was where I was with dance- immature.
And like most things which we set out to do our perceived goal isn’t often where we end up- at least it wasn’t for me. I never got as far with ballet as I wanted to go. I was aiming for a large ballet company with a long history. I was hoping for the experience I saw in dance magazines and had tasted onstage and at summer intensives. But it turns out the road is hard and over populated and you have to get yourself around a decent distance just to hope to get a job, and what felt like a decent facility was really just so average in the large pool of those of us desperate for that chance.
So after years away from dancing professionally, after 4 babies and so much distance from the training I was once able to offer to the art, I find my facility no longer able to uphold much of the movement that used to inspire me in that season. But truly, while I still love it and respect it, it is no longer the style that moves me or flows out of me. Now when I get the chance to move it is far closer to what happened in my childhood living room than what happened in any ballet class I took growing up, but it’s all been ripened by that experience; the way an elder’s curled frame is so vastly different than a babies.
It’s harder now in a way. Little Heather had no preconceived ideas of what made good or poor art, good or weak technique. But it’s richer in a way too, it’s built on a foundation of so much work and sacrifice and struggle. I never liked any improvisation classes- I still don’t! The expectation for originality or fluidity feels too heavy, or else the product feels like saying so much nothing. But when I get chances to move in private, with contemplation and prayer, there is something that can happen that is so healing for me now. It takes longer to move to the center of big Heather -past the criticism and even the fear of opening the big feelings that are worth being vulnerable expressing… but when God meets me in the work I am so thankful for all of it. Thankful to come full circle.
