Day 2: Allegory of the Cave

A morning of heavy cleaning had already wiped me out. I had dusted and moved a few things in my dance space as a part of that so the space was feeling refreshed even if I was not.

The great thing about Alia's Love Note e-mails is they give you a focus but not a command.

Day 2 was light. My dance room has an average dome light so I usually leave the blinds open. I knew that closing them wouldn't really block out enough of the afternoon sun to do anything but make my dance room less stimulating. So I decided I would have to imagine my play with light. I chose my tribal/fusion playlist today. My dancing was a sort of fluid posing which made me think a lot about line. I imagined I was shadow dancing or dancing behind a screen as I flowed from one shape to the next. The last song that came up was Jehan's Enter the Temple. While I adore her and her dancing, I think that song is like Kraft - it's the cheesiest. But today, I focused on the lyrics as well as the music and let the song guide my line/shapes and breath. It was actually fun. I should give that song more credit.

My big observation today was this. If someone who was not a dancer was given still images of a bellydancer dancing in street clothes and not made up in any way, would they be able to identify what was going on? Do our lines, angles, expression, etc give us away? It's something to think about.