I believe that a life spent embracing the body, a life spent moving, of tuning into our instincts and senses, is the richest form of being alive. While dancing, we can practice staying open, responsive and flexible --- physical qualities that become a guide for our emotional life...how we hope to act in our relationships and approach our work.
Our world often devalues the physical. It asks us to disassociate from our body, or it over-sexualizes the body, or under-sexualizes it, or it only wants to allow young bodies to be seen. Dance can offer something wonderful --- a path to a clearing. In an embodied state we can experience our bodies as intelligent, sensual, powerful, vulnerable, aging and growing all at the same time. This offers a kind of grounding one can drop into at anytime. For me dance has been a teacher in learning to embrace contradictions --- to see contradiction itself as beautiful in so much as it affords me a better angle on truth. Useful contradiction can be found everywhere --- when executing a dance movement, such as a relevé, where you focus on going down to go up. In an improvisation class it becomes more philosophical as you must become both a leader and a follower simultaneously. In modern dance I love to see how abstraction and pedestrian readable gestures collide and vibrate against each other.
When I dance, my body and my mind are experienced as two sides of the same coin…they are not the same thing and yet they are….the coin has to be in motion for me to see the whole picture --- the coin must keep spinning in my mind…..dancing.
To read Tami's full artist profile from July 2016, please click here.