“5, 6, 7, 8”
a berlin-based letter on dance and devotion
Welcome to “5, 6, 7, 8.” This is a *personal* letter that will be delivered to your inbox monthly. It’s more content-driven than it is announcement-based, although I’ll update you on my travails/travels too. Here are some thoughts to get you started.
~Already know you want to subscribe? Click the button below!~
“I’m always trying. I keep desperately trying to dance,” said Pina Bausch in an interview that is as full of bold statements as it is cagey, timid, and riddled with apprehension. She answers questions with “I don’t know, I don’t know” and then says, “wanting to be loved; that’s definitely our motor.” Pina says, “actually I am always working. Every hour is a working hour and then again it’s not.”
According to Youtube dog trainer of fame Ceasar Millian, discipline = repetition/time. Discipline does not = punishment. It’s about consistency, clarity, and constructing a life for your dog in which there is no other way for her to be than within the structures the owner has constructed. Scholars including Donna Haraway have studied the human-canine relationship as one that bears the heavy load of being inextricably linked to colonial history and the establishment of social and political structures of oppression, as well as one that holds discipline and control at it’s core. At the same time, Haraway claims that these structures, like the behaviorism promoted in the book “Ruff Love,” are about disentangling love from your relationship with a dog so that the enthusiasm is directed in a certain way that is rewarding for both the dog and the owner. Astrologer Rob Brezny defines “Wild Discipline” as something that provides just enough structure to set you free.
To many, the life of a dancer is synonymous with structure and discipline. However, the dancer’s life has no assurance of financial security, long-term health, freedom, or reward, and exploitation and abuse loom. Fame is a laughable prospect. Hard work is a given. Asceticism, if stereotypically, characterizes a dancer’s lifestyle. Often and not always, the decision to be a dancer is taken at a young age. It is a long-term commitment, and in the voice of the neo-liberal rationally-minded, to ‘fail’ as a dancer is to have royally wasted your time and your youth.
Why did you decide to dance when you were younger? Why are you still choosing dance now? What about dance do you still believe in? What does it mean to believe at all?
Hark! A coming-out moment: I believe in God. I grew up in an Episcopalian church and still love the vibe. Over the years I’ve delved into other spiritual practices, like Astrology, Reiki, Tarot, i-Ching, as well as read theology, religious philosophy, and the history of Christianity. I’m a minister in the Church of Universal Life, which doesn’t mean much except that if you want me to officiate your wedding or emcee a funeral, I would be so down. I’m busy with God. And I think that the only way to be responsible when you’re busy with God, given all the blood that’s been shed and lives that have been ruined, is to be inquisitive (haha?) about the parameters of belief. And dance, in my opinion, is a great way to study belief, as a phenomenon.
In the pursuit of God and the formation of a dancer, there is a sense of the irrational. It’s a faith in the abstract, the beautiful, perfection, and pleasure – a nebulous entity, always out of reach, which makes us feel very alive. To be on the path of this type of pursuit, is to engage in structure, form, discipline, devotion, and ritual.
In these letters, I’ll draw from my career as a dancer and my relationship to faith, church, God. Dance and God have both been big factors in my life, and 5, 6, 7, 8 is one way I am playing out the dynamics of this particular threesome. I hope you enjoy!