adventures in wonderland: deborah hayís conscious community dance

Hellene Gronda

Imagine
all your fifty-three trillion cells
(and more)
perceiving.

I was lucky enough recently to be part of Deborah Hayís large group improvisation workshop: ìConscious Community Danceî (Melbourne 19-21 October 1998). Over three nights about forty people came together to dance in a safe and wondrous playground at the Fitzroy townhall. You might have found yourself rolling on the floor like snake with seven others, or speaking in tongues, or getting a massage, or exploring the contact between your knee and someoneís shoulder, or running at top speed through a twirling forest. What I learnt from her practice, especially, was a way to disable the critical voice (inner and outer) which makes me fearful. I discovered a generous way of looking, a gaze of wonder, which helped me to move, sing, babble, and interact with a whole bunch of strangers.

The awakened body: all fifty-three trillion cells, whole and changing, all perceiving. Her signature technique is called ìcellular consciousnessî. She asks you to reconfigure yourself as a cellular being, as an energy field. So your ìIî is the whole body, made up of fifty-three trillion cells, and you imagine that they all have awareness. Her impossible, paradoxical instructions mean that no-one can ìdoî what she requests: as she says with a chuckle, weíre all not-doing it together. You canít get it, so just move and notice the feedback. The dance is whatever comes from the imagining, from the imagined perception. The instructions are the game we agree to play out together. The paradox is energising, a way of stimulating non-linear thought. It creates ìlateral doingî, and it also means that you canít look ìforî someone doing it ìrightî. I see you practicing what I am practicing.

Get what you need or what you think you need. The dancing evolved each night from in-place, solo dancing to interaction in pairs and finally to include larger groups. We started off in a loose, filled-in circle with her as a central focus, although she emphasised that anyone could take that place. We had to slowly turn on the spot and ìImagineÖî, looking at everyone else and seeing them as ìfifty-three trillion cells perceiving.î With such minimal directions we began hesitantly, not sure how to interpret the instructions. We had gathered for dancing, and community dance specifically, but this was more like a meditation. Hay herself moved very slowly, making subtle twisting motions with her arms and hands which appeared to be drawn from the space around her. They did not seem to be autonomous movements; it was as if she was immersed in some medium, everything about her body was receptive, responsive. But at the same time you felt she was absolutely centred. She was exactly where her body was. Where I am is what I need.

She smiled as she turned, and her pure delight in this experience was infectious. She commented at one point that this practice just made her feel happy. She felt happy seeing everyone as fifty-three trillion cells perceiving, and Iím sure lots of people agreed. What a pleasure to look at people, focusing on their cellular nature. The lightness came from the impossibility of the task you were trying to do. This is impossible, she would say, so donít try and do it. Assume you are already doing it.

Hayís gaze was bright and active, but not directed so much as spread over the space. She danced alongside us, making minimal interventions, mainly just re-stating the practice along with some extra comments. The whole body as teacher. Your teacher inspires my teacher. The whole body as a resource. She told us that these were as much to remind herself as us.

On the first night, she stopped to tell us we were being ìa little lazy in our lookingî and to remind us to actively see each other. It was really hard and not a bit scary! It is so easy to go inward and dance in your own little world. The outside can be a threatening place, and in our culture, to be seen or to look is often dangerous. (what are you looking at, huh?)
I invite being seen, whole and changing.
But the next night was even more challenging. To ìinvite being seenî was confronting in two ways, though I guess theyíre related. One because Iím an amateur dancer, and have the normal horror of being watched. This is then intensified as a woman, socialised to be on display, to aim for beauty, to try and please the eye. ( Frighteningly, men too are coming under the body beautiful regime).

You remind me, to invite being seen, whole and changing. But it was such an ecstatic experience that I soon got over my fear. There was no way I could do it right, no way I could be wrong. I was inviting a gaze, inviting everyone to see me as an inspiration to their own changing. Allowing myself to be seen was a gift to the other dancers, just as I was receiving the gift of looking and being inspired by them.

The community dance was for me an experience of wonder: Wonder occurs when we see something new, unpredicted, if it exceeds our knowledge or expectations. Like all improvisation, Hayís dance wasnít contained in the instructions which produced it, but also, to make space for wonder, you have to drop the gaze which wants to judge, compare, criticize. This is a reaction based on fear, it is a protective mechanism, a habit most of us have - despite feeling victimized by it when on the receiving end.

Of course you canít know if people are judging you, but you are so busy doing the work, that there is no space to worry. And you assume everyone else is doing the same. You ìinvite being seenî: you chose to act as if you are not being judged. As Hay says: Itís a trick I am playing to awaken my body. Itís a game. Playful and deadly seriously. Play it out ferociously. (just a little philosophy bit) The infamous Descartes claimed that wonder is the first of all passions because it moves us; we cannot view an object dispassionately if it arouses wonder. The feminist philosopher, Luce Irigaray suggests that wonder ìis the motivating force behind mobility in all its dimensions.î(ESD 73)
This was exactly true in the community dance.
Wonder, the initiator of movement, is both active and passive and like movement needs stopping as well as going. Stopping to look, listen, absorb. To really look is to perceive the possibilities beyond what I think they should be. For Irigaray, wonder ìconstitutes an openingî; it is the ìpassion of the first encounter.î(81-2) Perhaps (she wonders) it is ìthe place of incidence and junction of body and spirit Ö possible only when we are faithful to the perpetual newness of the self, the other, the world.î(82)

This beautiful passion was at the heart of my delight in Deborah Hayís community dance. It gave me hope that we can create a society not driven by fear, but moved by wonder and appreciation.