Being seen, being moved

While I was reading the text so many questions arose about what was being said. I wrote them down and tried to answer some of them by re-reading, pausing and analyzing the content but I don’t think I have been completely successful. The reason for that is that the reading is not a mere explanation of the process of connecting the mind and the body while dancing. It also has a philosophical content that addresses issues of self-trust, acceptance and denial of one’s condition, importance of a community, the nature of fear and judgments. There are probably many others that I have missed.

I think that the author of this text was moved by a tendency to show strength and self-control by keeping experiences at an unconscious level and thus, not processing and accepting them as part of what we are. The fear of being judge and/or being a failure is something that I personally have experienced and still do, and that I can say many people do, if not everybody. In my opinion, the question of where to draw the line between what we share with others and what we don’t in combination with a need to be recognized as the strongest and best of all has driven us to a point of self-denial. Is it really necessary to draw limits between each other? Do we really need to categorize people as good or bad, clever or stupid, capable or incapable?

The Authentic Movement is the author’s response to these questions. Even though the title of the text (Being moved, being seen) disoriented me, when I finished reading it made a lot of sense. It suggest something strong an is the idea of taking the power away from the dancer to move his or her body and allowing something else to move it while somebody else is watching. The dancer’s unconscious is the “something else” that creates the movements. Rather than created the movements emerge as they are already there, they already exist. Why can they not emerge when we are conscious? They don’t emerge because those movements are transparent, true and authentic and we are afraid of being authentic.

Something I found particularly interesting is the idea that these movements are design to clean and heal our souls. “(…) below the layer of unexpressed movement is the wealth of human experience” says the author. Thus, practicing the Authentic Movement is essential to heal and clean ourselves from those things that are stopping us from reaching the peaceful climax in which we would be able to create. The reflection on the experience that the movement reflected is what would give us creative material rather than the experience itself.

Gabriela Juncosa