It Takes Time

It has been awhile since I have had the opportunity to sit down to write. The delay is not because of negligence, it has been due to 2 disruptive life events - a birth and a death. I write this today from a more personal note than usual - I hope that's not indulgent, but honest.

The birth has been a new endeavour, our Bez Arts Hub baby. For years my husband and I have dreamed of a space where artists might be able to collaborate, present, have meaningful camaraderie; a place that the community at large would be able to join in on the synergy and witness creative minds in motion. It took decades to conceive, but when our dance studio found itself in the position of needing to move to a new location, it seemed logical to consider the dream that had sat on the shelf these many years. "What if, rather than just open another studio, what if we found a space that could be multi-use for all the arts?" 

It took 8 months for that vision to grow and find its ideal locale - 8 months of knocking on doors and putting in proposals and looking at spaces before just the right one emerged. A lovely studio space, one that had been on the market for nearly a year, found its way onto our radar.

Amazingly by the end of the 9th month (like I said, a birth), we signed the papers and moved in. And yes, all that a new baby requires, this newborn needed it from us - it kept us up at night as we became aware of all that was required; it was continually making messes that called for cleaning up; its growing activities were incessantly crying our for attention; and its practical demands involved endless effort on the part of both of us, regardless of how weary we were becoming. 

But it's here and it's wonderful! How wonderful this new life in the community has not only brought heaps of joy, but has also drawn people together (as so many babies do). And we are thrilled that we've been able to deliver a healthy offspring. Trusting that we'll have the energy to keep up with it!

That brings me to the death. For double the number of years that we have dreamed our dream, my father has envisioned similar things - care for families, room for artists, fostering community. I suspect that those seeds took root in my own heart and became the implanting of my version of what he had envisioned. I wanted to make sure that he got to see the multiplication of his dream in a new generation; I wanted him to know that it was even a dream that came alive for the sake of his grandchildren too.

Our first major production in the Bez space was a dance production that his adult granddaughter, my daughter, was in. By this point, his health was not good and, because of living on Vancouver Island, it was a challenge to get him over to Langley, but I knew he needed to come. Finessing a complex series of transportation strategies, we managed to get him there and back. My dear dad, he gushed about how much he loved the space and the professionalism of the performance - endless comments of pride, "How did you do all of this?" were enough affirmation for a lifetime. What we did not foresee - in just a few weeks he would pass away.

Understandably, it has been difficult to grieve - this new baby has been so demanding and needy, we've had little time to pay attention to the loss of my dad And yet, because new life has come synchronistically with this death, there has been a undeniable sense of comfort in the new life we've been experiencing at Bez. He is gone, but he still lives in the vision of this place. Bez Arts Hub has his heart, his passion and compassion, and note...it also has ours. 

Yoga?

Some of you might be wondering why we do not offer yoga at Bez Dance - yes,  this “exercise” form has taken North America by storm, but I thought I would just offer up a few bits of information for you to consider. Please don't hesitate to email me at hello@bezartshub.com, if you would like any further information about this material.

The word "yoga" is Sanskrit; it derives from a verbal root, yuj, meaning “to yoke or join or fasten or harness, as in horses to a chariot; to concentrate the mind in order to obtain union with the Universal Spirit; to be absorbed in meditation.” Its meaning in plain language is union or yoking with the god consciousness. "Namaste," frequently said at the end of yoga classes, means, "I bow to the god within you." The sound "om," that is often the mantra chanted in yoga classes, is intended to bring students into a trance so they can “join with the universal mind”.

As with many worship expressions, there is an emphasis in yoga on ways in which to best honour the gods. Yoga therefore has established postures that mimic the postures of illustrated and sculpted images of these gods. The “lotus position” for example imitates the posture of Vishnu; the “lord of kthe dance” pose is a re-creation of the pose of the dancing goddess Shiva; the “cobra pose” is dedicated to the serpent; the “fish pose” is also the incarnation of Vishnu; the “monkey pose is a recreation of Hanuman, the monkey god. The positions are also dedicated to various gods. “Sun salutations” are specifically for the purpose of worshipping Surya, the sun god; Marichyasana, or sage twist. is dedicated to Marichi, the son of the god Brahma; the warrior pose is dedicated to Shiva, the warrior goddess; and so on…

It has been declared by the yogi’s and Hindu leaders themselves, physical yoga disciples are integral to the faith and created for their worship value. Even the Hindu America Foundation (HAF) are up in arms that anyone would presume to disconnect Yoga from its Hindu roots, (regardless of efforts to create such concepts as "Chrisitan yoga" ). "While HAF affirms that one does not have to profess faith in Hinduism in order to practice Yoga or asana, it firmly holds that Yoga is an essential part of Hindu philosophy and the two cannot be delinked, despite efforts to do so." As Aseem Shukla, author of The Theft of Yoga (from the "Indian Realist") has said, "Hinduism, as a faith tradition, stands at this pass a victim of overt intellectual property theft, absence of trademark protections and the facile complicity of generations of Hindu yogis, gurus, swamis and others that offered up a religion’s spiritual wealth at the altar of crass commercialism… "

Prashant Iyengar, son of B.K.S Iyengar (the founder of the Hatha Yoga) declares, “There is no physical yoga and spiritual yoga.  If it is exclusively physical, it won’t be yoga.  Yoga is dealing with the entirety; it is a union.” Iyengar aptly describes, “Hatha yoga…[to be] commonly misunderstood and misrepresented as being simply a physical culture, divorced from spiritual goals…Asanas (yoga poses) are not just physical exercises: they have biochemical, psycho-physiological and psycho-spiritual effects.”

In short, for us at Bez Dance, we’d like to choose exercises that are not spiritually connected in this way. We have, rather, chosen to develop stretch and strength classes which use a collection of exercise vocabularies developed by our instructors and from other sources, such as Pilates, as an effective conditioning form - for exercise, flexibility and strengthening.

Can I Have This Dance?

North America has greatly lost its sense of dance as a culture - we tend to leave it up to the "professionals" - but in most other cultures (note especially the Africans and the Polynesians), dance is just what they do. When there is a celebration, they dance. When they go off to war, they dance. When they mark a new season in life, they dance...and it's not just the young, it is everyone, of all ages. I was significantly affected a few years ago when we were attending a church in Kona, Hawaii and in the middle of the worship time, 2 older (and I must note, fairly overweight) women got up and spontaneously began to do the hula. Tears were streaming down my face as a watched the beauty of sway of the hips, the fluidity of the flowing arms and the delicate gestures of the articulating hands. Have we maybe stolen away the natural splendor of the movement of a woman by either requiring that only the thin and the trained do it or by contaminating it with sexual themes? Is it maybe time to take it back in it's true form?

And men, too, have often had their gift of dance taken away - few men dance any longer in North America and those who do are either led into quite an effeminate direction with it or need to be super-athletes to do it (think breakdancing...does my huband really need to be able to spin on his head to dance?). But again, the Pacific Islanders have it figured...take a look at the "Haka", a dance done by the men of the Maori culture (the best clip is of the New Zealand "All Blacks" rugby team) this is a dance for stirring th warriors to step out into battle (I, personally get shivers everytime I see it). At the First Nations event a couple of years ago, we watched a crowd of Polynesian young men sing the Haka over a group of young Canadian First Nations men. There were tears and weeping...a realization that many of our young warriors have lost their hope and their courage - this seemed to be a reinstating of them into their place in this culture. I pray that they, too, would dance an impassioned dance of identity, of authority, of strength, of purpose...

I'd love to ask again, can I have this dance?

More Than a Thousand Words

It has been said that a "picture is worth a thousand words" - how much more, then, is a moving picture worth? Dance is a constantly evolving series of moving picture moments and, if you listen carefully, there will be words spoken you that you (and perhaps, even the choreographer), never realized were there. In a day when words are cheap and information is overloading our senses, dance has the ability to speak beyond words and communicate a message that goes directly the heart and spirit of a person. I have watched joy released by the unihibited twirling of a 3 year old; I have seen grief uncorked by the lamenting gestures of a contemporary dancer; I have witnessed beauty of all sorts washing over an audience, mesmerized by the simplicity of the unison movements of a corps of ballerinas; I have seen a crowd ignited by the powerful clacking rhythms of a mob of tap dancers. This is why we dance...not only is this a lovely way to express our humanity, it is essential to our being. 

It is why I often encourage choreographers not to be too "literal" in what they create. By keeping dance a little more "poetic" the meaning can often go deeper and can often speak beyond what even the choreographer intended. Let's be honest, there are many life experiences that don't even have words that adequately express the scope of their impact on a person (eg. grief, ecstacy, depression, fear, love...). As famed dancer/choreographer, Isadora Duncan once said, "If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it..." And so we dance...if I could've, I would've even danced this message for you...

Dancers Stay Smarter

It's the evidence I've been looking for! The long sought after truth that the many years I've given to dance is going to pay off in my old age! But this is evidence in a direction that I never expected. For those who think that dance is for people that are more inferior in their intellectual capacity (why else would anyone choose the arts over academics?) Well here is the data - read it and weep!

A 21 year study done by a team at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine looked at a the correlation between leisure activities and the risk of dementia (declining cognitive abilities) - in a collection of elderly individuals. The results (at least from my perspective) were surprising.

Mental tasks such as creative writing, reading, playing music, group discussion, crossword puzzles, board games and cards; physical tasks such as tennis, , golfing, swimming, bicycling, dancing, bowling, walking and climbing stairs - all were considered and their impact assessed with regard to their reduction of incidences of dementia. A few of the results were as follows: Reading - 35% reduced risk of dementia; Bicycling and swimming - 0%; Doing crossword puzzles at least four days a week - 47%; Playing golf - 0%; Dancing frequently - 76%.

Remarkably dancing was the only physical activity that resulted in a reduced risk and was almost double the effectiveness of even the most risk-reducing mental activity. Richard Powers, Prof at Stanford University observes that "Dancing integrates several brain functions at once, increasing your connectivity...Dancing simultaneously involves kinesthetic, rational, musical and emotional processes."

Further, researchers have discovered that styles of dance that involve constantly changing movement patterns (like swing dance or any freestyle dance) rather than the same repetitive rote patterns (like ballet or ballroom dance) increase the impact of the dance form on the brain. It seems, the need for the brain to make snap decisions with each "next step" actually helps to create new neural pathways in the brain. Since dementia is the result of neural pathways becoming blocked, single pathways for a given activity can become quickly disabled. Multiple pathways, on the other hand, permit the brain to adjust to new courses whenever one pathway gets blocked.

So keep those bodies moving - it's good for your brain!