By Kimerer L LaMothe, PhD
The greatest challenge in my life as a modern dancer has been giving myself permission to do it.
Part of the reason is that I came to dance late—as a junior in college who was already enamored of intellectual life. I thought of myself as a rational, goal-oriented, individual, using my mind to seek truth about how to make the world a better place. Dance had to prove itself. Why dance?
Part of the reason is that I came to this realization while attending a top liberal arts college that had no dance major and no dance department. Dance did not rank in this institution’s pantheon of intellectual or artistic pursuits. I wondered: Why?
Part of the reason was that my experience of dancing was transformative. It woke me up to sensations and experiences that felt profound to me—even sacred—but were neither acknowledged nor encouraged by the mainline Protestant churches in which I was raised. Why?
Part of the reason was realizing that, for me, a day never feels fully lived until I have, in some way, danced. Why?
And part of the reason was that, as I used my mind to scour the classics of western philosophy and theology looking for answers to these questions, I found so few resources for doing so. Why?
After years of studying and creating and practicing dance, all of these “why’s” came together for me in the writing of this book. I finally realized that if I tried to answer any of these questions by assuming a generic “human” on the one hand and a range of possible life options on the other, I’d never get to the place of affirmation I longed to reach.
Instead, I needed to retell the story of what it takes to become a person, with dance at the heart of it all as a vital, enabling condition of our humanity. I needed to write it, drawing upon my own experience as a dancer. And so I did.
Luckily, I had help. Many people, working across a range of disciplines, are currently discovering (or rediscovering) the fundamental role that bodily movement plays in the evolution and development of human beings—our agile minds, big hearts, ritual activities, and ecological adaptability can all be traced to the movements we make and how those movements make us.
In writing this book, I was able to connect the dots, and offer a vision of dance as vital art. It is for me!
For more information: http://kimererlamothe.com/ www.vitalartsmedia.com
To purchase the book, click here.
-------------------------
Comments