Dance…I Hope You Dance
By Tina Walsh and Kyung-Ha Whang

Are you tired of the same old exercise or are you at a standstill in your fitness routine? How would you like to try something light-hearted and fun yet powerfully transformational? You might want to consider dance—it’s been used throughout the ages to help us connect with our life force, access a higher power, and invoke a deep truth and knowing. No, you needn’t have dance experience; the only requirement is that you be in a breathing body!

Dance has played a role in diverse cultures all over the world for centuries. Collectively, people have expressed themselves through movement to a common rhythm. Feelings and emotions were shared through communal dance. American Indians danced around a campfire in indigenous costumes chanting their prayers or woes. African tribes danced in celebration and thanks after a hunt, birth, or death. Some cultures had serpent dances, sword dances, or circle dances, to name a few.

There is the usual litany of traditional dance classes being offered (i.e., ballroom, waltz, tango, etc.) But for a fresher dance exercise experience, there are a bevy of new expressive mind/body dance classes cropping up. These classes may actually join several styles into one cohesive form. The new forms, which help us capture the healing dance of the past, will definitely help dispel myths that dance only has to do with toe shoes or choreographed steps.

The following is a description of our experiences with four expressive dance forms: Shake Your Soul/Danskinetics, NIA, Journey Dance, and 5Rhythms. 

Shake Your Soul (SYS)
SYS is an offshoot of Kripalu DansKinetics and was created by Daniel Leven after he began studying movement therapy. SYS is a moving experience in which music inspires your spirit, dynamic movements free your body, and entrancing rhythms call forth the power of your soul. It is a synthesis of the physical aspects of aerobics and modern dance forms, but also resonates with our inner ocean, creative spirits, and our emotional truth.  
The basis for SYS is the six fluid movement forms: lymph, intercellular, venous, arterial, cerebral spinal, and synovial. These fluid forms have an energy, an emotion, and movement sequences associated with them. This combination helps the individual access many of their bodily systems, including muscular-skeletal, organ/glandular, nervous, and fluid systems. Additionally, the movement repertoires in SYS allow for emotional expression and assist us in releasing tension, improving physical fitness, and connecting to our self and others. 

SYS incorporates movements from yoga, Qi Kung, and African and modern dance. The movements are synchronized with global music. The class starts out with guided group instruction and creative processes; branches out into improvisational movements; and ends with meditation or Qi Kung. SYS is about enjoying yourself and your body and does not require discipline. There is no right way or wrong way¾just finding the natural joy of movement through the structure and freedom! It is an embodied experience rich with authenticity.

Journey Dance (JD)
Created by Toni Bergin, JD is a playful and intuitive method of using movement to discover and celebrate inner strength. Driven by music, JD uses elements of theater, visualization, vocalization, guided sequences, and improvisational movement. You are called to awaken your imagination and embark on a journey to fully express yourself as soul.

You are guided to use your imagination to create mini-rituals: you will build a fire, plant a garden of dreams, and become a warrior. Images and creative visualization enliven your journey. You will imagine sinking into mud, bathing in golden honey, surging like an ocean wave, hunting like a warrior, and floating like feathers. Images are used to help focus the mind and allow the body to find natural expression.

Music is used to open the charkas. It invokes the elements of earth, water, fire, air, ether, and rides the fluids of the body. Music and movement bypass the mind, allowing you to discover, trust, and affirm your deepest heart’s knowing. Toni ignites you to move rhythmically¾controlled and uncontrolled.

NIA
NIA is fusion fitness created by physical exercise gurus Debbie and Carlos Rosas in 1983. At the height of the “no pain/no gain” aerobics movement, they felt a real void in the way that current exercise regimes addressed emotional/spiritual aspects. NIA is a compilation of nine movement forms: Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, and yoga (three healing arts); Aikido, Tae Kwon do, and Tai Chi (three martial arts); and Duncan dance, jazz, and modern (three dance arts). From these nine movement forms, the Rosas created a set of 52 moves for the base, core, and upper extremities. These movements are coordinated with three levels of intensity and three planes of movement (low, medium, and high). 
A class consists of choreographed movements reminiscent of ballet, martial arts, Latin dancing, and aerobics. These defined steps and changes in directionality, coordinated to funky music, inspire us to ultimately flow into our own rhythm beyond the prescribed choreography. While reinforcing form and alignment, NIA still allows for freedom of movement and expression. This dance delivers a joy of movement and a feeling of being present, while also working toward physical fitness.

The 5Rhythms
Gabrielle Roth is a world-renowned theater director, philosopher, and recording artist who has created her own form of ecstatic dance. Her teachings for the past 35 years have permeated many areas of culture. She is credited with being the queen of trance dance. “Each of us has a wild kingdom hidden in our hands and hips, core and limbs, bones and breath, spirit and flesh,” says Roth. The 5Rhythms are a simple, powerful moving meditation that anyone¾of any age, size, or ability¾can practice. There are no steps to follow or learn. There is no way to do it wrong.
Just like an ocean wave, a dancing body that moves freely will pass through five rhythmic patterns, which continuously repeat themselves in a wave of motion. We learn to surrender our movements to these distinct rhythms. The more we move, the more we sweat away our constrictions, the more we relax into the unpredictable, creative, joyful experience of freedom.
The 5 Rhythms: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness are a state of being.  We’re guided through music and language to a rhythmic moving meditation for highly personalized dance and movement experience. Drums and other styles of highly evocative music to induce a trance state to further free the individual. This by far was one of the most freeing dance experiences. While there was minimal class instruction, this dance allowed for the maximum liberation in physical and emotional movement.  

Research has shown that people who participate in dance and other physical exercise have better coordination and motor skills than their non-dancing counterparts. Not only will you work up a sweat in these classes, which have a definite aerobic component, but you will also alleviate stress and anxiety. Dance/movement therapy acknowledges the connection of the mind and body and seeks to heal one through the other. Emotionally you learn greater self-awareness, self-confidence and freedom of self-expression.

As human beings, we innately want to move our bodies. Just look at a child! Why walk through life when we can dance? Whenever we are free to express ourselves, physically or emotionally, it leads us to a greater sense of who we are. Dance movement is about getting in touch with the part of our selves that wants to express, create, and grow.
               
There are many options when it comes to finding ways to exercise and/or move. What we discovered in our personal search is that dance fulfilled so many of our criteria, not only on the fitness front, but emotionally and spiritually as well. The common vein that permeated all the styles we explored was how easy and fun it was to dance around and be free. We forgot about work, family responsibilities, and the million things on our “to do” lists, and we were completely present with ourselves in our own personal dance.

If you are in a rut or just want to try something new and exciting that moves you in a whole new way, just dance, step by step. Our bodies are infused with the spirit of dance. It is alive in each of us, waiting for us to exercise its powers of freedom and joy. If you can’t get to a class, turn your radio up and dance yourself into joyful abandonment. It will surely leave you smiling from head to toe!

Tina Walsh, RYT, LMT, Reiki Master/Teacher, is certified in Shake Your Soul/Danskinetics. After leaving the corporate world behind, Tina has immersed herself in learning and teaching wellness. Her goal is to empower and inspire others towards positive personal growth. She operates Lighten-Up Yoga & Bodyworks, located in Mansfield, MA.  www.lighten-upyoga.com

Kyung-Ha Whang, LAc, MS, Dipl. NCCAOM, is a certified instructor of Shake Your Soul/Danskinetics; has trained in various styles of yoga; and holds a certification in Power Yoga. She is a practitioner of Oriental medicine, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and nutrition and is the director of Oriental Healing Arts Clinic in Mansfield, MA. 

First appeared in aspire… Magazine Apr/May 07 issue.