How are you falling these days?
How are you falling these days?
Oh I do love this time. It certainly has the feeling of a new year as the kids and families fall back into time and schedules as school ushers us into. I enjoy the tiny hands lifting rocks, leaves and acorns upon our HOUSE table, as we grab socks and warmer sweaters around ourselves. Each of us with new stories we have garnered out in the summer as we draw ourselves back in.
Change is upon us. You can see it in the sky and earth and in the news that is whizzing by. They say that is the thing we can count on. I have worked hard to find the answers to being a better dancer, better human, someone better equipped to handle change. Do we get better at this? I have navigated myself through so many forms of movement, ballet, contemporary, yoga, and somatics only to find that the best tool or code to train is to train in chaos. It’s true, if you think about training someone for dance or for life they need to be ready for anything. As soon as you learn a form, you need to see how you can break it. In the breaking we find meaning, we find new ideas and possibilities. We find growth.
I know that could sound terrible, especially because we like stability. However, if you think about a three year old they are a total madness of ideas, wonders, feelings, fallings and often all at once, and they can do everything. Sometimes I wonder about us adults. When did we learn to hide our learning or that we are even learning? Seems the farther we get away from the ground the more reasons we have to not return there.
“Balagan” is a Hebrew word often used in my work as a practitioner with the Ilan Lev Method. It is a way to embrace chaos and “to be in practice with life”.
Inside all my classes and work there is a shake, the chaos of the ball, the quick changes of direction and forms, states, textures and levels. This crazy blend I find to be the perfect tension between what is wild and free and what is tamed and formed. This gives room for differences to define each other, to build virtuosic strength and flexibility under imperfect conditions. I find this to be an invincible practice of being able to fall into anything making the most beautiful dancers and humans.
Wander in, from the young child to adult, novice to professional. I hope to see you soon.
Let’s fall…
I love this article on Balagan:
https://qz.com/quartzy/1706320/this-hebrew-word-can-change-how-you-deal-with-chaos/#:~:text=Balagan%20is%20the%20Russian%2Dderived,to%20use%20the%20word%20often.