In Mabel Todd’s classic from 1937, The Thinking Body, she asserts:

“Behavior is rarely rational; it is habitually emotional. We may speak wise words as the result of reasoning, but the entire being reacts to feeling. For every thought supported by feeling, there is muscle change. Primary muscle patterns being the biological heritage of man, man’s whole body records his emotional thinking.”1

It seems logical that emotion would be tied to dance and movement. I’d like to propose that we could engage in more conversation about emotions and their power within the context of a dance class in general. Otherwise there tends to be a sense of shame or intolerance, as if there is an unspoken law or fear that emotions are not welcome.

The obvious example seems to be when someone begins to cry in a dance class. It can be awkward in general to find oneself crying in public, but in a dance class there is a unique opportunity to work through one’s emotions and what brought on the tears to begin with, through the focus on movement. The first time I attended a two week Axis Syllabus workshop in Santa Cruz, I ended up sobbing after the last class ended, and I wasn’t sure exactly why, but I knew that it had something to do with the movement. I was vulnerable having been stripped down by the struggle to surrender playing out through my body, and I felt lost. Then I felt embarrassed as if allowing myself to break down and cry meant that I was trying to bring attention to myself.

Later, during another workshop, a friend of mine who had undergone a great loss, collapsed in tears half way across the floor. She had allowed herself an escape from all she was dealing with in order to come to class, and it was the movement that ushered in the release she was craving. I went to her and held her for a while until she could breathe more freely again, and then she continued dancing. Often I find that when one cries in class, one struggles to stop crying or hide his tears, and there is an expectation that she or he will not finish the class, but will leave the room, as if cleaning up the spill so no one else will slip on it. An emotion is like a bodily fluid, when it leaks there can be shame or embarrassment at the exposure of our humanity, as if we were dogs suddenly pissing on the carpet. The approach is to avoid or ignore the emotions in favor of focusing on training, and emotions are dealt with outside of class. But if one can stay in the class and find some way to keep moving, the emotions can become valuable, wordless teachers. What are they there to teach us? We are all human, and are made up of emotions, triggers associated with sensations, images, ideas, and movements. Our emotions are directly associated with all of the intelligence stored in our body. To try to shut it off is wasteful if we are seeking any kind of wisdom by dancing.

Emotion, meaning outward motion, is just that – some idea or feeling in the body coming out to make itself known. In Stephen Wolinsky’s book about meditation, Hearts on Fire, he devotes a chapter to “The Transmutation of Energy.” He explains that emotions are made of energy which can be converted, ortransmuted, so that we can see that the energy that materializes into sadness in our bodies is the same energy that bursts into joy.

…Anger without a label is energy or consciousness in a form different from sadness. Sadness is energy in a form different from hate. Once experienced without labels and judgments, the steps of transmutation can easily be accomplished. First remove the label from the sensation, emotion, etc., and second, witness or watch the experience with no judgment, evaluation or significance placed upon it. Just experience it as energy or consciousness.2

The Axis Syllabus focuses on converting the kinetic energy from a fall into a continuous flow of movement in which we have choice and through which we can express ourselves. If emotions are the expression of stored energy, they must make up some other layer that we can explore and exploit for our use. Energy efficiency has become a defining issue of our age, so I argue that as movers we should take advantage of every ounce of stored energy available to us, especially when it wants to spill through us anyway, and put it into our movement, rather than hide it away. But in order to do this effectively, the emotions must be present while we are in a state of exploration.

Meditation is one way to explore the phenomenon of our emotions, and in meditation, one of the crucial practices is simply staying with the practice. This is part of any practice. If we are made up of emotion laden muscles and nerves and organs, memories and synapses and folding patterns and movement pathways, and we come to dance class to experience something of this through movement, then we should not be surprised when emotions come up, all shapes and colors and sizes. One could argue even that this is the point, and why else dance? As in any classroom experimentation, shouldn’t we examine whatdoesthen come up? Why does it come up? Does it last? Is it associated with a movement, a social dynamic in the classroom, the music, some pattern? But what? Then we can see what our emotions really are to us and how they make up our experience, cueing us that we are alive and in the world. As life is a gift, we can see that emotions are also a great gift from ourselves to ourselves. So dance class then has the potential of being like a birthday party, as we open our gifts all over the floor.

In a jazz dance class I took once in New York my first year there I remember a rather cruel and sobering experience. I grew up as a jazz dancer and NYU was my first real exposure to modern dance, so getting off campus and taking jazz classes was a special treat for me. I was having fun, feeling a surge of energy, and as I walked off the dance floor after doing a combination I did a quick turn, smiling at my friend. The instructor walked up behind me, grabbing my ponytail and pulling me backwards off balance, and said, “Why don’t you concentrate on what you can’t do.” Naturally it stung and I never went back to that guy’s class, and with all due respect, I can understand his intention as a teacher from the “old school” of break ‘em down so you can build ‘em back up. But what a waste of pure joy. He needlessly traumatized the joy right out of me and I was left with heavy anger that I didn’t know what to do with.

I have witnessed a fear in some people, at times myself included, that prevents them from coming to dance class in the first place, or makes just showing up a particular challenge, and I believe ultimately it stems from being afraid that the emotions bubbling under the surface of their being might not be welcome if they boil over within the context of dance class. Is it actually a fear of not being able to do the movements, or a fear that when he or she becomes emotional through their work, they will not be able to control what happens to them, and they will become ashamed? Ultimately, losing control is one of our deep fears, though the control we covet is such an illusion anyway. Maybe this fear is like a yearning to stay asleep. I wonder what we can do to create a more accepting, compassionate environment in dance classes so that people feel welcome, show up and get to work. If having an emotional experience becomes viewed as a high, like skiing down the face of a great mountain, perhaps more people would be willing to face their fears and join the human race more fully, emotions intact. As a culture we could then more completely embrace our emotions as part of the journey. Bring ‘em on!

Granted, I have also witnessed people, again myself included, using an emotional outburst as some sort of entitlement. “I’m having an extreme emotion and am therefore exempt from any and all responsibility.” Maybe this attitude is a reaction to the oppression of emotions we experience in society, but this point of view can also render us powerless against the will of our emotions, and make us blind to their true messages lingering around behind or underneath the more visible ones that bring us attention, make us dangerous, and put us in a position of false power if those around us play along and enable us to continue our fun little crisis. It is important to recognize the vicious holding patterns in which our emotions can bind us. So the idea behind staying with our emotions, or staying present, is not to dwell on them, but to give them an appropriate amount of space so that they can move through us, and change or develop into something else, go deeper, grow larger, become clearer, but move. In periods of particular grief or growth, patience is especially crucial. But everything wants to move. Nature is about change. If nature is repressed she finds ways to move through or around what’s repressing her. Our bodies are meant to be vehicles for change. And dance class can be an optimal arena for realizing this, if we allow it to be.

1 Todd, Mabel Elsworth, The Thinking Body: A Study of the Balancing Forces of Dynamic Man, Paul B. Hoeber, Inc., New York NY, p.1

2Wolinsky, Stephen H., Ph.D., Hearts on Fire: The Tao of Meditation, The Birth of Quantum Psychology, Blue Dove Press, San Diego, CA, p. 57