Sara Chesterman

Janis Claxton, creator of Spirit In Motion, has been teaching dance for twenty-two years. She has inspired many audiences, students and dancers with her choreography and teaching, showing dancers pathways to alternative forms of dance and leading people who may never have thought it was possible to find the joy of dancing. With her early training in classical and modern dance, her studies with Eric Hawkins and his dance company members, and her strong working partnerships with musicians and dance teachers she has created a style that bridges traditional dance and its more alternative forms. And the accessibility and constancy of her classes has brought professional dancers and those who have never danced before together.
It's her lifetime commitment to and passion for dance that has meant that wherever she goes, whether it is France, Japan, Sydney or Northern NSW, (her current place of work) her studios are full, her classes packed and her waiting lists long for her courses. We interviewed her during the hectic last weeks of SIMTIC 2000, a three month alternative dance training as she directs 20 students for their final performance. And this is just weeks before she heads off to Bristol taking her unique teaching style to Europe once more.

Spirit In Motion is the product of your life's experience of dance; can you tell us how your relationship with dance began?

I've been dancing since I can remember. My first ballet class was on my third birthday. I had a terrible childhood. We don't need to go into that, but basically from a very early age dance was my healer. Dance kept me alive. All through my childhood all of my passion, my yearning, my trauma, my pain, my hope, every ounce of my being went pouring into my dance. In this way dance was my religion I guess, my prayer, my only hope of a light at the end of a very long dark tunnel. And that saved me. Saved my life, literally. Dance was my connection with my spirit. When I was very young I had a deep and conscious understanding that dance was a spiritual path, a healing tool. I guess I was lucky to have had this extraordinary focus and direction at such a young age. But I had to. I would not have survived my childhood without it. And in a sense the adversity of my childhood gave me that commitment to the dance. So in a weird way I am ever so grateful that my life was so traumatic. That has given me a very rich and rewarding life.

When did you begin teaching dance and why?

I believe we have an obligation to share our gifts. Well I believe that I have that obligation. And I wanted to. With intense passion I wanted to get the world dancing. I couldn't understand why this gift of the dancing medicine was for ëspecial' people, usually white, middle/upper-class, able-bodied, females with thin bodies and small breasts! The dance had been robbed from our culture and I felt a lot of pain around this. So I decided that I would develop a dance that every body could do. And I did. I began teaching at 14 and I haven't stopped.

Is this when Spirit in Motion began?

Yes, that's where Spirit In Motion really began, in that dedication to share the essence of dance with people and to continue drinking my own medicine and heal myself. But I didn't begin to call my work Spirit In Motion until around 1990 after a lot of study in the areas of dance and healing and when I began to get a deeper understanding of what I do.

What about the name ëSpirit In Motion'. The phrase seems to be your definition for dance.

Yes it is. I believe we are spiritual energy, some call it chi, ki, life force, spirit whatever. Energy runs through our bodies. We can all feel it. Ultimately I believe that every part of us is our Spiritual energy but we have separated. We have Body and we have Spirit. We have polarity. We have a big fat mess in the world and a desire to integrate our world and ourselves. That's my experience. I see it everywhere.
This belief has evolved out of my personal discovery that I have two major parts to my being, my spirit, the invisible, my body, the visible. My life is a complex set of circumstances that evolves as these two parts seek to meet each other and harmonize, searching to integrate. Dance is the most direct and enjoyable way that I have found to bring my Spirit and Body together. When I was young I knew it was this invisible part that danced me, that healed my body. As my Spirit went into Motion, through my body, I felt deep healing and integration.
Just put your essence into motion and we have dancing! What is so wonderful is that each person has their own unique combination of Spirit and Motion and that each dance is its own.

You talk about Spirit In Motion integrating the spirit and body and how this is a healing process, can you explain this further?

Some people might think it sounds ëout there' but it is really very very practical! The word spirit might sound too cosmic for some. Then we can call it creativity, or art. Whatever works. Do what works! Believe in what works. And the healing is very practical and simple. It is the joy of expression, the joy of presence in motion, the connection down into the earth that is the healing. It doesn't have to be a deep and profound or cathartic experience to be a healing experience.
I think sometimes people get scared when I talk about the ëhealing power of dance'. Its funny, people can be so serious! I just mean the power of connection, connection into our bodies, into the floor, the earth, with each other, with the music and the rhythm, with the audience or the witness. It is really very simple and practical. Connection to the meaning of the dance -the image, the sensation, the emotion... Connection is healing. Fun is healing. It is connection to our essential energy. Healing doesn't have to be a big drama. And you don't need to be sick to heal. It is just a huge and vital part of life, from my frame of reference anyway. And, it can be big and dramatic and cathartic as well!

Within Spirit In Motion there are three distinct classes that you teach; Free and Wild,Spirit In Motion, and Contemporary Hawkins/Release based dance technique. What is the focus of each of these classes?

Free and Wild Dancing is a community dance class that is fun, energetic and is set up to bring people together to move in rhythm with music and release stress. It's about connecting as a community, within a community. I usually run it on a weekly basis wherever I am living at the time. It's funky, easy to do and works out the body with very natural and earthy movements.
Spirit In Motion is usually in a workshop format. The focus is healing and personal process and just what we have been talking about - exploring our energy in motion. I am very involved in the sensation of my energy. I guide people to have direct and conscious experience of the pleasure of dance and to use the dance as a way to consciously release stress and heal.
My technique class is based on the principles of Eric Hawkins. He was a great, great man, a genius and I was lucky enough to have studied with him in New York. Eric formalized what was really the first ërelease technique'. Essentially it is his principles of movement that I integrate with other release technique principles and my own discoveries that form this class. The focus is the pelvis as the centre of motion. We work with the illio-psoas muscle group and anatomical principles to guide people into natural and pleasurable pathways of motion. It increases range and freedom. It's juicy, fun and very pleasurable. A lot of this class is on the floor - we roll around like puppies in sensuous bliss occasionally pouncing across the room like panthers and we nearly always finish flying effortlessly just below the rafters!

Why has your teaching developed into these three distinct strands?

Wow, I have so much to teach! I am just so excited to teach! It has taken me many years to clearly develop these streams (and there is more: Improvisation, The Dance Of The Goddess and Rhythms In Motion - my work with Greg Sheehan). But I have taught so many people in so many diverse circumstances, from many lifestyles, countriesÖ People have different needs. Some people need their dancing journey to be performance focused, others process oriented, others need to teach and share their dance with the world that way. Some need a wild cathartic release whilst others need to roll around the floor for hours softening into mush!

Though your technique classes are strongly based on learning certain principles of movement, improvisation is also a big component, why is this?

Improvisation- oh that word! It is so open and so mysterious and so innate in every breath. So, so pleasurable! I just love it! Why? Why not?
What is the dance if it is not our own? I am not interested in steps for too long. Even when I teach steps or sequences I always get the students to improvise with the material and make it their own. The greatest pleasure for me is to watch people embody what I am teaching and own it. I am a very generous teacher, but at the same time I am intensely selfish because I think I teach improvisation so that I can get pleasure from watching this process!
This answer could fill a book, so I will go to the next question...

Can you elaborate upon how your teaching of dance technique classes supports your work with the spirit and how a Spirit In Motion class is important in the technical training of a dancer?

Oh yes, I can! Within all of my work there is always some attention to the principles of motion. I see that all bodies have a need to rediscover natural, holistic, integrated ways to move. My technique classes are where I focus intensely on alignment and clearing our physical holding patterns. The focus is very practical. People learn where they are moving from and can make choices to change patterns and move in easier more efficient ways. As bodies let go and move with more ease more sensation runs through and more pleasure can be experienced. This is very healing, to reclaim our bodies and our right to move in comfortable and pleasurable ways. At the same time, to let go in this way and to invite the body to change and have more fun dislodges that which has been held, sometimes frozen. More often than not this is pain. So even in my technique classes there is a movement towards healing on an emotional and spiritual level. I also believe it is vital for professional dancers to reclaim the magic of dance. In so much dance training the focus is on technique, style and tricks. It is great to watch highly trained and clever dancers indulge in the pure joy of dance in a Spirit In Motion workshop. It brings them back to their essence, opens up the creative process and gets them out their heads, into the body and the joy. In this way both extremes of my work feed each other. It's the experience of energy in motion and I don't care in which natural ways we get it. I want it and I have different ways to teach people about it. You can go from either end of my work - technique to Spirit In Motion or visa versa - they feed each other. They are really heading to the same place - embodiment and pleasure. I am obsessed with the pleasure of dance!

You are currently running The Spirit In Motion Training Course 2000 (SIMTC 2000), a three month intensive performance and improvisation training for the professional dancer, physical theatre practitioner and movement therapist. You first ran this course in 1999, what were your objectives when you set it up?

I had been dreaming up this course for more than 10 years. Essentially I felt that dance training was lacking in certain areas and too focused on others, that training schools isolated many people and were elitist. I also felt that the programs were often disjointed, that the subjects didn't always relate and often opposed each other. I saw too many confused bodies. I experienced several gapsÖI was so frustrated that the dancers didn't seem to understand me, that the healers and therapists didn't seem to dance, that the musicians didn't move and that the dancers couldn't count.
So, SIMTC is set up to bridge three gaps:
Art and Healing
Community and Professional dance
Music and Dance
It also came about due to some fantastic long-term collaboration with wonderful teachers. This was especially Helen Clarke Lapin and Greg Sheehan and experiencing first hand how their work enhanced mine. These two teachers live in all of my work now. They have been a great influence on my dance and my teaching.

A major component of SIMTC is training dancers for large group improvisation, why is this important?

Improvisation is the essence of the creative process. It is exciting, brings us into the present moment. I have been particularly drawn to group improvisation. I think it is to do with my desire for community and my love for the visual art of dance. I teach a lot of compositional skills and in order for it to work we really must be community minded. There is a lot of sharing, I think, a lot of ëin the moment' collaboration, and this generates a lot of love. People's patterns get exposed, and we have a chance to work with our strengths and work out our differences. It takes time to develop these skills but once a group has honed them it is truly amazing. I have watched some of my students take these skills into their own performance work and create great pieces that would have taken months to choreograph! That has been very satisfying for us.

Both SIMTC 1999 and 2000 included a weeklong intensive study of Aboriginal Dance with Matthew Doyle. Given that SIMTC is essentially a course in performance and improvisation and Matthew taught the students set dances that they have no permission to perform, why did you include this subject?

Firstly - why would any dance course in this country not include Aboriginal dance? Mmm, I could get political here but I will try not to. It is about grounding and respect. The earth makes us dance. We dance on the earth, from the earth, in connection with Spirit. Working with Matthew and traditional dance gives us permission to have a spiritual focus on our dance. There are so many things that we can receive from this opportunity that will feed our performance and our improvisation, rhythm, precision, composition, clarity, simplicity, image, meaning, ritual, community, internal focus, depth, respect for dance as an ancient healing art.... not to mention the physical workout! I am so grateful to have had this experience. It can't really be articulated, the depth of it. I believe all of us who have worked with Matthew have only scratched the surface of its worth...

What has been your experience with and of Aboriginal dance?

I taught at NAISDA for 6 months in 1991. That was wonderful and very challenging. During that time I was lucky enough to have worked intensively with some elders from the desert, Auntie Nora and the women from Ernabella. Also I studied with some Torres Strait Islander dancers from Boigu and Saibi Islands. That was a big blessing in my life and influenced me deeply. Since then I have performed and studied with Matthew.

How has aboriginal dance and what Matthew teaches influenced the way you teach and work?

It is back to permission. Permission to own my dance as a spiritual path. I felt at home working with Matthew. I could do those dances forever. And that experience has deepened my grounding on both physical & energetic levels. You can see it in my work. I can feel it in my body.

Inclusiveness seems to be an important part of your work, especially with your Free and Wild dance classes that you advertise as being for ëevery body and soul', and with your work with mixed abilities dance, can you talk about this in relation to community dance?

Inclusiveness? Community Dance? Why was anyone ever excluded from dance ? Our birthright! I don't get it!
I try to include anyone who wants to dance. I believe that dance is a birthright of every body. In traditional cultures dance was a part of life and was not exclusive. Some people were indeed the dancers or the singers but everyone was given opportunities to dance. I just want to open doors to people who thought that dance was not for them. I find a lot of hidden desires in people around dance. And it is so therapeutic - so why shouldn't we be inclusive?
Perhaps it is more pertinent to ask other people why their dance is exclusive. I think that is the more relevant question today.
I have developed lots of ways to entice people into the dancing pleasure and help them take back what is theirs. I don't work with specific communities although I have done in the past. I want o create new communities that are full all sorts of people. Sometimes it's hard to integrate every one. But it is my favourite thing - to have a room full of people from many diverse walks of life, all shapes and sizes, different colours-though that doesn't happen much where I've been working in Australia, different sexual orientationsÖwhatever, many diverse and interesting needs. And watch them dance together ? I love it!!

What are your plans for the next year and your new life in Bristol?

To be with my family to start with! We have had a long time apart. I want to perform more again, to bring the dance back into my own body. I have spent a long time developing my teaching and need to balance this out more. I will do a workshop in Switzerland with my muse Gloria McLean who is a great Hawkins dancer and choreographer. I will be a student again. I am very excited about that. I will continue my work with percussion. Greg Sheehan will be in Ireland so if we can keep him there we will find a way to continue our work together. I have lots of plans but rest is first. SIMTC is a very big job!
I am thinking that I will teach less but I doubt that idea will last long. I am a passionate dancing maniac and I just can't help creating ways to share that. It's out of my controlÖÖÖ.

When will you return to Australia and teach again?

When one of you sets it up! I can't organize that from over there. I am open to be invited...

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