Rusty Dancers. Out of practice but still in LOVE

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Dance in Action; LA Contemporary Dance, FAM & Sleep Sound

I sometimes wish I could keep my eyes closed. 

Eyes shut, in bed, anything is possible. I am in control. One night I could stroll the halls of my old high school and the next fly in a 80′s neon sky. 

Eyes open, as the sun rises, I’m in a shared reality. My well-being, my shelter, my meals, everything I touch is dependent on others. On what others have given, on what I have paid for, on what others choose to share in the moment. 

These people, on whom I depend, can lift me up, inspire, expand my theory of what is possible, support me through rough experiences, demand my attention, rely on me to carry them, rally my emotions. 

The people with whom we relate on a regular basis become our day-to-day family. Today in dance class, I adopted a family: young and old, experienced and new, but all open to feeling the music, to finding a connection between ourselves and one another. That specific dynamic between dancers (more specifically dancers working on a project together) was explored through the show FAM at the LA theater center. Physical energy is transferred to others, is shared, lifted. 

One of the most exhilarating components of the night was a film directed by Nathan Kim, produced by Ben Shearn & Rachel Scandling called Sleep Sound. It was a beautiful piece that took place in a desolate setting, monochrome browns, the cast in neutrals and white. They were all coming together, finding their own identities. Then separated in different rooms, they each exploded in a color - throwing red powder, yellow. Exciting, beautiful. 

The show FAM was beautiful as well. I especially enjoyed the performance of Kate Andrews; she had amazing control of her body and such a commanding stage presence. But with the film shown a bit early in the performance, I kept waiting for the moment of surprise and exhilaration when the stage might pop with color or a bit of theatrics would come into play. However, the focus remained on the movement of the dancers themselves, and instead I was treated to a mostly white, bare-boned stage. OH!!!! I can activate my imagination, I realized. I could throw the color. 

Eyes open, anything was possible.

-Catherine

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Dancing with Myself in 2016

As helpful, inspiring and connecting as classes are, I feel it’s important to remember that dancing with yourself can provide much value. You know what parts of your body are stiff, need strengthening and more care. And it’s so much fun!

-Catherine

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Songs of the Summer: Radiohead, Swod, Sean Kingston

Warm-up music sets the tone for a class. It brings you through a vast or focused emotional landscape. Back in one of our favorite teacher’s class (Denise Leitner) I realized a major change had taken place. Where were the warm-up songs I craved? SHE CHANGED THEM!!? WHYYYYY!? Ah yes, the change of seasons. It is almost summer after all. Time for rebirth. Yipee. 

I can’t say I loved the change. Part of what I loved so much about the previous warm-up music is that is matched my mood; it melded with the moves so smoothly. Now, anything different feels lesser, a little less well-matched. 

But then Radiohead came on. Mystical, sparkly, emotional Daydreaming. 

Maybe change is welcome after-all. This seems to be a popular song of-the-moment. On Tuesday Jess and I danced @thesweatspotla to this song in Jasmine Albuquerque’s Pulse class. Man I loved it. I felt like a gorgeous woodland fairie. And I love fairies! Jasmine has a way of making you feel beautiful. I’m not quite sure how. 

I suppose part of it is that she looks at you, smiles at you, makes you feel welcome and seen. I felt that our dancing influenced her in a way. She also has this authentic quality about her. She’s not being the teacher she thinks she should be, or who she thinks we want. She’s however she is feeling that day. I really wish her class was 1.5 hours. I liked feeling beautiful. <3

Back to the music!!  This is a playlist I’m personally liking. Very moody. 

And what is my favorite summer dance jam? 

LETTING GO (DUTTY LOVE)!!!! 

This song makes me so indescribably happy. It makes me thrilled to be alive, to grow, to dance with others. Dutty Love! Ah! 

What are your songs of the summer shaping up to be? Curious to know!

-Catherine

P.S. I’m sure I will grow to adore the new warm-up music list. Familiar is very welcome when warming the body.

[maddieziegler-and-maisiewilliam]

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Taking a well-known story and reinventing how it’s told. 

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First Class Back -- A Slow Start

Last weekend I took my first dance class in just about 5 week. 

I went to one of my favorite classes Sweaty Sundays @thesweatspotla with Nathan. I saw Nathan the evening before and felt comfortable knowing the combo wouldn’t have too many jumps and that he was okay with me marking some of the warm up. 

It was really challenging. My calf still felt a little week. And I didn’t feel comfortable jumping around for an hour so I marked a lot more of the warm up than I was hoping too. Didn’t want to go across the floor and then found myself forgetting the choreography. I was nervous. What if I get injured again?  And if I miss stepped I didn’t feel comfortable correcting myself right away, so there were definitely some awkward stumbles 

All I wanted to do was let go and dance. But I needed another week or two to strengthen up some more. It’s a slow process to trust my body again but every day my calf feels more and more solid. Today even we did some jumps in physical therapy without a hitch.  I just can’t wait cause my heart really wants to glow.  - Jess

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Physical Therapy - The first Session

Key takeaway is that my leg has forgotten how to walk. What?! It’s been less then a week and it can’t remember how to do what its been doing since I was 2. Yet, 7 years of no dance and my muscle memory remembers. 

That loss of trust runs deeper then my emotional state. My leg needs to remember how to use all its muscle together again. At least that’s what my PT said. It’s normal. Sure. Super normal. 

Though as we stretched and did exercises the improvement was substantial. I can almost walk thru my calf. Though the inside muscle still has that valley, where there’s a trauma. So slow and steady. 

Good news it the cowboy boots give you the same effect as a medical bootie. So my PT recommended I wear them as often as possible. Thank goodness I’m kind of obsessed with them.  - Jess

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Down but Not Out - Never Out again.

Injuries are never what you expect them to be. I always imagine that I’d turn my ankle doing some big leap, fall to the floor and dramatically get whisked away in an ambulance. But it has not been that way, not this time and not that first time either.

Getting injured is scary. Your body suddenly turns on you. Something you fully trust without a second thought, isn’t there for you. And you literally fall. 

On Friday in class, after the warm up, I felt warm and stretched. It was the third exercise across the floor in a a jazz class with a focus on turning. The exercise was a simple turn preparation, moving across the floor. A step my body has done so many times it feels as easy as walking. Only this time I did the step, put my weight on my right leg, for this pas de bourree and my right leg gave out. I felt a pulse like pulling sensation in my calf and I limped to the side of the room. Sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out what happened. It was my calf and it was definitely not okay.

A wave of sadness over came me and I chocked back tears. Not because the pain was so bad but because my body that I trust so blindly proved untrustworthy. It felt like the love of my life just told me he’s no longer interested. Worse than physical pain, my heart broke. 

17 years ago, when I was 17 years old something similar happened. My body gave out on me but I refused to believe it. I hurt my knee, felt unstable but wouldn’t acknowledge it. After dancing on the injury for three months, I did a grand plié in first position and my body wouldn’t let me back up. I crumbled, physically, and then emotionally.  Though I had surgery and my knee healed beautifully, my heart was broken, and my body refused to bounce back. The dance company I was hoping to join was no longer interested in pursuing me and off to university I went. My dance career never happened. 

Now it is 17 years later and I’m (a lot) older, (slightly) wiser and (more) resilient. My heart might have broke on Friday but I’m strong enough to face it, fix it and get back into class. I’m still on crutches with a slight tear in my calf muscle but physically therapy starts tomorrow...  In the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back.” - Jess

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Inspiration, a la Robert Green

Just from the initial performance of Robert Green, you can see he’s playing with levels. Levels of flirtatiousness, stillness, quick, sharp, soft, low, traveling, contracting, rolling, breaking. It’s so much fun to see the contrast, to guess what’s coming next and to be surprised.

Start at 4:07 and watch the guy in gray. Yea. That’s how I want to dance!

I wish Robert was teaching a regular class in LA but unless my googling skills are lacking, he’s not full-time in LA. So, I’ll have to find that level-rich dancing another way. This video has my brain back on the choreography track. Now I want to choreograph a piece! To Rihanna’s Consideration!

Let’s see how it comes in the coming weeks. It will be interesting to chose dance moves that are flattering on my current body.

I’m excited. Ps. Robert was teaching at the Movement Lifestyle studio in La. I haven’t stopped by yet, but they post some of the best dance videos online, and it’s definitely one of the studios I’m most excited to join.

<3

-Catherine

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Strength, Love and Jazz Funk, Dancing with Sheryl Murakami

Meditation class ended last week, and we were asked to think of two words that encapsulated what we discovered during our class. It didn’t take me long to land on strength and love. In this journey, I am a huge support system for myself. I can take stock, breathe, be gentle on myself, love myself. It’s just plain weird talking about loving yourself. You should love others, right? 

When it comes to loving yourself, what does that even mean? In class we did guided meditations where we asked ourselves:

May I be filled with true love and kindness, and come to accept myself more as I am.

May I be safe from inner and outer harm.

May I be healthy in body and mind.

May I be at ease and peaceful, even given life’s inevitable ups and downs.

May I always have what I need.

May I be free from unnecessary pain and suffering.

Wow. That’s a start. I am not used to thinking these things, or about these things.

On Monday, Denise had a sub so Jess and I explored other classes. Armed with no sneakers, we thought it would be a great time to familiarize ourselves with the funkier side of dance, and into Sheryl Murakami’s class we fell.

Sheryl choreographed for Beyoncé. So she’s legit. She taught choreography from 2010, and boy, was it foreign in my body!

But what I kept with me? Strength and Love. I didn’t stand on the side, I took the class, I tried to dance full-out, I focused, I went for it. Did I nail the choreography? Not at all. But I showed up, and everyday I push myself, I grow stronger. And as I see myself in the mirror, working hard (looking silly), I kinda like that girl. That girl who is not only dreaming, but working towards that dream.

-Catherine

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The Splits, a How-To

One day, well, everyday in Nina McNeely’s class @thesweatspotla, we were encouraged to do the splits. I have never been a natural at the splits, or really any dance move that requires flexibility. I did, however, grow up knowing how to cheat the splits fairly well. I was feeling fine about my splits skillz until one day at a summer dance camp my teacher pulled me in front of the class to do the splits ‘properly’. Only I wasn’t flexible enough to do them right.  When my hips were properly aligned, I could stretch my legs about as far as an upside-down ‘v’, which is to say, barely enough to hold myself up with my arms! My jazz teacher looked frustrated and said I needed to learn how to do them right. So I looked online to see if there were any tips for the splits, and indeed, there were. 

**Reminder** Make sure the body is warm before beginning to stretch! I like to roll the ankles, wrists, and all the joints for a minute or two, then do some jumping jacks for a few minutes or other blood-pumping (!!) exercise to loosen up a bit. Also, breathe, and if it hurts, pull back!! It is very possible to overstretch and pull a muscle that will leave you tender and in moderate pain for over a month!! Go easy. 

I am not sure, but from personal experience, I think the best way to achieve greater flexibility is to go easy on the body, more frequently. So, because I want to get into the splits soon, I will warm up and stretch twice a day. It should take about 10-15 minutes each time. But, this time spent will give me a lot more confidence on the dance floor. 

Here are the stretches:

#1. The forward bend, with leg stretched. The key here is to keep the hips aligned. And breathe. Start sitting on the floor with one leg bent at the knee at a 90 degree angle and bring one leg straight in front of you. While reaching back with the hips, lean your upper body forward towards your toes. Hold for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until it starts to feel uncomfortable. Switch legs. 

#2. The hip flexor. Back ‘standing’ on two knees, extend one leg back, straight and rest on the ball of the foot. Bring the other leg into a 90 degree angle in front of your chest and support your body and control the depth of the stretch with your arms. Switch legs. 

#3. The pigeon. Sit on the floor. Bring one leg in front your chest, in the shape of an upside-down ‘L’, and extend the other leg behind you. As you continue stretching, be sure your hips are straight and the back leg is reaching towards the back wall. Switch legs. 

#4. The straddle. Sit on your butt and spread your legs as far open as they will go. Then bring them in a little so they aren’t stretched so wide, and begin to reach your upper body across the legs, and to the front.

Apparently, these exercises will help you achieve the splits. I will keep you updated on how they go for me!

-Catherine

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Foundation Building: Rediscovering Technique

 Alright, let’s take stock on where we are, about 1.5 months into this project.

What we’ve got: The basics of dance, moments where we feel free and connected, joy when dancing, the beginning of becoming part of the dance community (yea friends!), passion and determination.

What we haven’t got:  Strong technique, control over our bodies’ minuscule movements, the ability to remember and execute choreography without looking at our fellow dancers, confidence in our strengths as dancers.

This week we branched out from the Sweat Spot to the Edge PAC to work on our technique. And boy did we get a great refresher course! Denise Leitner teaches an old-school class with tondues, contractions, posse’s. It felt so good; I couldn’t stop smiling during the whole warm-up! When we finished, I knew I had recalled some of the technique I used to be familiar with back in the day. It felt amazing to stretch from the core, reach, fall, float. I felt so much stronger.

The choreography was emotional, but required more technique than our classes at the sweatspot. Double pirouette into a rond de jambe?  Okay! It wasn’t pretty, but it felt good and was just the challenge we need to build a foundation in awareness of all the body can do.

To go back to our old post about goals: perhaps we are on #2..

#1 Rediscover the joy of dancing

#2 Rebuild a foundation of technique and body awareness

#3 Dance freely and fully

Focusing on our technique, surrounding ourselves with those far more advanced than us, will inspire and drive us forward. Denise spoke about how she learned how to dance at The Grateful Dead concerts, there she felt free! alive! connected! Then she could return to the studio, apply that experience of freedom to her technique and really dance. 

Ah! That’s what we want to do! This dance project is very inspiring. There is a mountain of work ahead, but rewards hidden along the way. Getting to meet fellow dancers and sharing the passion, the music and the movement is overwhelmingly supportive. I’m so grateful to Jess and the dance community. 

-Catherine

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I just drop kicked my Ego (dancing to Rhianna’s Needed Me in Nina McNeely’s class)

It started with standing in class about to do the choreography when I realized that I can’t remember the beginning. It’s not that it’s technically so difficult, but each movement is very specific. And it’s the specificity that makes it so artful and beautiful. But it is also what’s making realize how much I need to learn.

Not only has my body changed in the last 7 years since I was taking ballet class but so has dance. My specialty was learning choreography and just remembering it without even trying. In Nina’s class this week, I watched, I mimic’d, and I could even hear it but when my body went to do it, it just didn’t know how. Gut check. Was I ever even a dancer? 

Nina McNeely is a very special teacher. She’s described as ‘out there’ and really ‘weird’ choreography but to me it is anything but that. It’s specific, beautiful, and the most musical. She uses each beat, tone, layer of music and it is pretty magical when dancer’s hit her choreography. There’s room for their personalities and how they hit each movement. It looks SO incredible to dance when you can do it. Just watch the video above.

It also feels really exposing to me. I have to let myself out of the ballet cage to hit Nina’s movements. It is absolutely terrifying. 

What’s it going to take to get there. Well first, patience, and then courage. Starting, I need to do each movement, phrase 100s of times for my body to learn it. Nina uses a lot of the same movements in different ways so hopefully it’ll get easier as my body learns it. Hopefully. And I’m so curious what I’m going to look like when I free myself. 

Luckily, there’s this video, that I’m going to put on my TV and break down. Each step, like the dance nerd I’ve always been.  Wish me luck.

- Jess

This is about the Wednesday February17th @thesweatspotla at 7 PM.

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Even more ALIVE

As kid growing up in ballet class, I was restricted from all outside physical activities. For both risk of injury as well as developing my muscles in a counterintuitive way. 

Well now, as an adult, I’m also a surfer. And most mornings I’ll be in the water -- and on Sunday morning before Nathan’s class I went for a surf. It was a BLAST but as usually I missed a wave, tumbled and the top of my board WACKED the top of my left foot. 

Going into class, it was quite swollen and pretty nasty looking. But the minute the music started, it didn’t bother me an inch. Whether it’s the focus or the blood flow from the movement, I was immediately immersed in the class.

The pre class surf also leads me to something else in Nathan’s class. He does a pretty intense series of push-ups and my arms are already pretty fatigued from all the paddling. But I still do every push up, just with my knees on the floor. Cheating? well maybe.. but who cares, I’m already pretty proud of my guns. :-)

Now, let’s talk about the combo. Perhaps its the focus a small injury gives or the fact that we repeated the choreography (we already know how I love that) but I found space in the movement. By space I mean, I was able to hit the movement while also bringing my personality into the mix. Make artistic choices. Even further, the teacher Melissa Schade was in class and we couldn’t keep our eyes off of her. In fact, that’s how we discovered she was a teacher. Both Catherine and I left class asking who she was... and now we’re excited to take her class on Thursday AM.

Melissa used that space in the choreography to bring her full heart into the movement. It was spectacular to watch but even further gave me permission to do the same. The years of rigid ballet training had me striving for perfection. And barely let me discover ‘me’ in the dancing. There’s still a full journey of discovery ahead. But I’m finally at the beginning. And wow, do I feel ALIVE. 

- Jess

This is about Sweat Sunday’s class on Feb 13 @thesweatspotla

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Together, Dancing to Sia’s Alive

We were all dancing together.

I felt such happiness. 

Nathan Kim’s Sweaty Sunday class began with an upbeat, almost taebo-style warm-up and led to walking around the room, saying hello to fellow classmates. Acknowledging classmates made us (me) feel more connected. As we went across the floor our emotions steadily rose, and by the time we learned the combination, everyone was dancing in a safe-space: freely, full-out. In a reminder of the power of collective energy, the dancing ended in a circle where everyone runs together and rushes back out. It was a joy and in some ways, a relief. Being in it together removes much of the individual pressure (I often feel) to succeed.

The class was so alive and powerful it felt like a dance historian might have stopped in to observe. The coming together of bodies in a shared space, listening to music popular in local culture and dancing in a perfect sync of emotional energy made our dance feel very important. It sounds silly, but it felt important. 

Jess and I were exhilarated after class. Despite what we looked like on the floor, we felt like dancers. Despite that we don’t yet know what will happen when we ask our bodies to ‘body roll’, (actually, we do know; we filmed it! It’s just hard to watch,) we felt oh-so-unbelievably good.

-Catherine

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Big Movements, Risks, Missteps: Dancing to Rihanna’s Needed Me

I have been attending a meditation class, and realized that I have very BIG emotions. I am very excited, curious, joyful, sad, confused, angry.

Did you ever hear that dancing reveals one’s interior landscape? Mikhail Baryshnikov says so, “When a body moves, it’s the most revealing thing. Dance for me a minute, and I’ll tell you who you are.” 

So you might imagine, this week I found my dancing very big. Just big. Mainly… big. Dancing big is risky; you are constantly in danger of losing control, of falling behind and missing a move. 

While big dancing is innately neither good nor bad, dance at its best has levels of intensity. It is large, soft, gliding, graceful, then sharp, slight, quick, contracting. The contrast of movement surprises, draws interest, and communicates the subtleties of emotion. As I take my next classes, I will focus on the minute. I’ll channel Fosse’s captivating isolations, so minuscule, you are tantalized when at last the movements are grand and sweeping.

It’s funny. Since I started this project, I was thinking that my learning would come directly from a teacher, that I needed someone to take me under their wing. And I am excited to develop that connection, but my classmates are also my teachers, and I am reminded most of what I need to learn comes from inside. I am the one who knows what I need to dance. To reinterpret Rihanna, “(I forgot) I needed me”:

“Bet you never could imagine Never told you you could have it

You needed me Oooh, you needed me To feel a little more, and give a little less Know you hate to confess But baby ooo, you needed me”

-Catherine

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Finding the Details

Getting back in shape is interesting. First it was a discovery of what’s still available for me to access. Then it is remembering how to access it. And now it’s realizing how much room there is to improve.

This feeling has me both excited, frustrated and craving technique. I want room and space to dive into the details and train my body to move.

And so I will focus on consistently attending the classes that are the most challenging (Nina McNeely @thesweatspotla) and adding in some more classes that will allow me to dive into technique, open up my body, help me find my flexibility and access my strength. 

All of this, so I can simply let my heart beat freely while performing each of the details in the choreography to its fullest. 

- Jess

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Dancing to Justin Beiber’s Sorry: Dancing for Fun & Nourishment

Some dance classes have the theme “work hard, have fun.” That seemed to be the case at Nathan Kim’s Sweaty Sunday’s. A fun, aerobic warm up led to hopping, sashaying, turning across the floor and climaxed to a routine to Beiber’s Sorry.

Dancing to a familiar song gives such confidence! It makes you feel as though you know what’s coming next, even if you only just learned the steps. Kim’s choreography was a little seductive, and very fun. We split the large class into just two groups, which allowed for as much dancing as possible, but made it hard to watch different interpretations of the dance; it was a little crowded. I wish all dance classes were 90 minutes so we could have divided into smaller groups without sacrificing the amount of times we were able to do the routine!

In this class I wanted less focus on how things look outside, and more on how the body feels. As an adult dancer, the act of dancing is less focused on pleasing an audience, but on one’s own pleasure. How does moving feel in my body? How does movement nourish my body?  I’m only beginning to explore this idea, but am looking forward to finding the ‘feel good’ sensation in every class. I am still remembering how my body works and reacts to choreography.

I left the class feeling absolutely elated. DANCE IS THE BEST! I had forgotten how dance inspires me, reminds me of my strength and desire for beauty. What is dance but making beauty with the body?

-Catherine

@thesweatspotla