Dance and Cancer

‘Learning to Trust’

Posted on Oct 27, 2022

‘LEARNING TO TRUST’

I gave this talk at the Yes to Life Annual Conference.

Saturday 24th September 2022, London

Introduction

Good afternoon everyone, and welcome.

I would like to thank Robin Daly and the Yes to Life team for inviting me to give this talk. During the next 45 minutes I will be talking about ‘learning to trust’ through the lens of my own story, utilizing both verbal and movement languages.

I begin by introducing myself.

I have had the good fortune of traveling through this life doing what I love, which is dancing, more specifically dance improvisation, which I have taught and performed for over forty years. I had a successful career as an independent dance artist, as well as teaching for 13 years as a professor of dance at the University of Illinois south of Chicago. Since August 2020 I returned from the US to live in my home base in rural Wales, from where I continue to pursue life as a performer and educator.

Dance journey

I started out as a successful sports player through my school years, having been equipped with a strong and well-coordinated body, and a good eye-ball connection.

I loved the feeling of freedom that I felt running, dodging, flying, diving after the ball.

At around the age of 13 I began to realize that if I pursued sport as a career, I would have to focus on being better than and beating other people. I knew this was not something I wanted to dedicate my life to doing.

I started my dance journey at age 17 when my mother suggested I might like to try dancing. She had researched a school that sounded like a good fit. To this day I bless my mother as through her wise counsel I discovered my passion.

During my formal dance training studying ballet and modern dance it was discouraging to realize that the same atmosphere of competition was central to so much of what we did.

It wasn’t until I graduated and was introduced to the world of dance improvisation that I reconnected with my passion for freedom and spontaneity of moving in collaboration with others, which I went on to make my profession.

Learning to improvise is synonymous with learning to trust. You are offered the support of guidelines or parameters within which to dance, but no one tells you exactly what to do. So, as a novice improviser you begin the formidable task of learning to trust your own physical responses to the moment at hand, learning to accept whatever happens, facing whatever presents itself to you, and in split second timing allowing yourself to discover the ways in which you reciprocate.

As your learning progresses a process unfolds that generates intuitive and precognitive decision making which is the really thrilling part! It demands enlivening focus of concentration and deep listening.

To facilitate other people’s learning the teacher must create a safe space within which the student feels supported and invited to take the risk of expressing themselves with some measure of authenticity. Much of the work entails letting go of judgement of oneself and others, so the space becomes a friendly and inviting place to work.

I call this a sacred space, where love and trust can grow.

Interestingly over time if you continue to practice, just like with everything, you get better – better at seeing clearly, accepting, trusting, and responding creatively. As you begin to relax into this process of learning your state of being calms, and confidence in facing unknown situations grows. Naturally your mind and body become more pliant, more alert, more positive and ready – in line with the spirit.

I recognized early on that these same tools are necessary for negotiating the improvisation of life, and so I have called dance improvisation a ‘life practice’ and is why I have spent the whole of my adult life engaged in practicing and sharing this form of dance.

Epiphany, Spirit & Trust

I had learned early on that life was a dangerous undertaking and carried the scars of an often-unhappy family life, early sexual abuse, and a number of painful romantic relationships, all of which left me feeling deeply unsure about my place on this planet. These experiences gave me an understandable mistrust of the kind of life that I sensed I was expected to conform to. Thanks to my mother I met dance, and a passion was ignited with in me that opened opportunities and gave me the necessary means to begin to heal and transform.

Looking back over my career, I see one moment of insight that was instrumental in changing the course of my life. It was an epiphany which I experienced during one of my first dance improvisation classes in the early 80’s. I was performing a simple duet exercise where we were asked to lean against a partner, sharing our center of weight. What I remember now was an experience of ‘prior knowing’ that came to me with a clear message. “All I would ever need to know in this life was already inherently present within me.” It was that simple, yet I knew it was ALL encompassing and would demand a very different approach to life from the one I had hitherto followed. I intuited that my work going forward would be about cultivating an awareness of the habits, ideas, and learnings I had picked up during my lifetime that undermined and obscured the truth of this new understanding. Through this awareness I would enter a process of ‘undoing’ or ‘unlearning’, to find ways of letting go of misguided limitations that held me back. In other words, I was embarking on a voyage of discovery—one that would reveal to me my own unique expression of the whole.

In that moment of epiphany my relationship to life shifted from one of fear and anxiety about whether I was going to be good enough to succeed, to one that exalted in the potential for life-long learning. This profoundly liberating understanding rendered me ecstatic, and I have memories of running through the fields after class with tears of joy streaming down my face, in awe of the fact that this powerful revelation had communicated itself through my physical form. This is what I would come to define as the voice of ‘embodied intelligence’ which enlivens all life forms on this planet, including our own.

It seems highly relevant that this epiphany, which was my first real intimation that life was trustworthy, came about during a ‘trust exercise’ where I was sharing my weight with my partner – a physical action which required letting go, giving up control. An act of surrender.

From the moment of experiencing this glimpse into my true nature a clear pathway forward opened for me. I have explored the potentiality of embodied intelligence for over 40 years of involvement with life-affirming dance practices & processes which have engendered a deepening sense of trust in life. So, despite having lived through my share of traumatic life experiences and challenges, I feel lucky to have lived life primarily through the sense of joy, understanding, fulfillment, and freedom that dance has afforded me, and have been able to give back through transmitting that joy to others. I view and experience dance as a powerful healing agent and expression of the human spirit.

As I dance from this new perspective, I experience simple joy that seems to well up from within me. It comes from an inner place and has led me to realize that joy has something inherently to do with who I am as a human being – indeed in essence who we all are as expressions of the human spirit. I decided it was more important to allow joy to be the guiding principle in my life rather than pursuing any outer attainment like success, positions of power, financial and personal gain.

Reflections on what the word ‘trust’ might signify for us

What is trust and why do we deem it to be of such importance in our lives?

We know what damages or destroys trust. All of us have had life experiences that have led either to growing trust or to damaging it. Indeed, if we step back, we see that much of our lived experience revolves around dealing with questions of trust. It is a central issue that affects our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being and quality of life, it is at the foundation of all our relationships, is central for our ability to face and move through challenging times, and for our healing and recovery.

Therefore, it’s something that is worthwhile spending time contemplating, indeed it seems to be ultimately important that we address it.

Many of us seem to move through life in semi-conscious ways, taking life for granted and so often our willingness to extend our trust depends on whether things are going our way or not. To some degree this makes sense, after all why should we trust when situations or person(s) are felt or proven to be untrustworthy. Yet the quality of our lives suffers as a result of maintaining this guarded position. Of course, it makes sense to be discerning, yet we are caught between a rock and a hard place as we negotiate an unwillingness to commit until we are given some intimation that we will be safe. ‘Staying safe’ requires for us to stand apart from life, never fully alive or connected. To protect ourselves we settle for what is known and secure. We play it safe whilst being haunted by a niggling sense of dissatisfaction and feeling that there is more to life.

The question is can we anyway control life? Doesn’t life tend to throw us wild cards which we were not expecting, both negative and positive, which catch us off guard. 

Sharing my own cancer diagnosis & treatment

I received a major wild card in March 2020, concurrent with a world in lock down at the beginning of the Covid pandemic when I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. This was deeply shocking to myself and others who saw me as the epitome of health. The second shock came when I was diagnosed as a BRCA2 gene mutation carrier which I had inherited through my mother’s lineage. Nothing had prepared me for the shock of this mortal challenge. By great good fortune my tumor was discovered at the beginning stages of growth thanks to a 3D mammogram and an alert technician. I was told it was treatable.

However, my cancer diagnosis severely tested my trust and conviction about the ultimate benevolence of life, including all its challenges and hardships, a trust that I had built largely through my artistic and spiritual practices.

Why me? I had lived as a vegetarian since age 30 and had always engaged in a healthy lifestyle. I seemed to have done things ‘right’ according to all the current research, but clearly cancer can visit any one of us – no one is exempt from the cards that life deals to each of us.

It seems that when life is good there is a thrilling sense of freedom that calls to be fully engaged with, and joyfully expressed. When difficulties emerge, as they inevitably will, and the path forward seems perilous, the work begins in earnest.

Where did we get the idea that life should be easy? 

Was I afraid?

Was I afraid? Yes, I experienced dread in the pit of my stomach on receiving my diagnosis. I read plenty of books at that time about extraordinary people who had miraculously turned their cancer diagnosis’s around. I was desperately looking for support, inspiration, perhaps I was also looking for someone to lead my way forwards, to tell me what to do. They were inspiring stories, yet they left me feeling oddly disempowered at the same time as being full of admiration and happy for the good outcomes. But I was in the midst of the anguish and fear that a cancer diagnosis inevitably brings and found it difficult to identify with these exemplary people and their incredible stories.

I read about what all cancer patients and health practitioners deem imperative for a favorable health outcome and already felt I ticked many of the boxes; a healthy lifestyle, a spiritual practice, and the support of close friends and family, all of which encourage a positive outlook on life. The one thing that presented more of a challenge for me was the importance of finding a reason to live.

I have no partner or children with whom I desired to celebrate the future. When my mother died of cancer in 2012, I accompanied her as far as I could to what felt like the edge of life, and from that place of peace and infinite depth I honestly felt as if part of me didn’t want to return to face the mundaneness of life without her.

This point concerned me. I could not find any definitive reason to pinpoint for why I needed to go on living. Would this negatively affect the outcome of my treatment?

As many of you know, facing a cancer diagnosis is facing into the unknown, akin to suddenly finding oneself floating alone in the darkest regions of space with what feels like a tenuous attachment to one’s previous known reality. It’s pretty terrifying.

In this moment of existential threat with no one by my side due to the pandemic, life forced me to rely on my own ground as a meditator and practiced dance improviser. I had no choice but to rely on my own foundation and, albeit shakily, I was able to stay calm, aware, and focused on the imperative to find out what all this meant, and how it would impact my life.

I can honestly say that this was the attitude I managed to maintain throughout the few weeks that followed as my treatment options changed from a lumpectomy, followed by radiation, to a double mastectomy followed some months later by the removal of my ovaries and fallopian tubes, once my BRCA2 status had been discovered. I worked with a brilliant team of medical professionals to whom I will be forever grateful and had the indispensable support of friends both near, though distanced, and far.

I also knew that as I faced my own mortality I was not alone. In the first Covid lock down, all over the world millions of people were isolated and facing the same mortal fear of dying. I intuited that the reason my body became sick was directly connected to the ailing body of our planet for which I own my share of responsibility. The town where I lived in the US was surrounded by Genetically Modified farmlands which were sprayed four times a year with toxic chemicals. My suspicion is that this could have been a trigger for my cancer.

To my great surprise I discovered that this is what has given me the strength to face my illness and to commit wholeheartedly to doing everything in my power to heal my body. I see my own healing as part of the planetary healing which as we now know constitutes the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

Curiously I also found another motivation for wanting to heal was for my ancestors, a number of whom no doubt carried the BRCA2 gene mutation which had not yet been identified and some I am sure died prematurely from their illnesses. I have been able to alert my immediate family and together we have identified those of us who have inherited the gene mutation so that they can now be tested regularly. This gives me great consolation.

I decided to retire from my stressful job at the university in the unhealthy environment of the Mid-West and return to do my healing in the Welsh countryside. Once back in the UK I contacted Yes to Life and Robin Daly helped me connect with Dr Nina Fuller-Shavel Integrative Medicine and Precision Health Director of Synthesis clinic. Under her guidance I am learning what it means to be truly healthy and realize in retrospect that in my former life I was barely scratching the surface. A whole new and revelatory perspective and knowledge about living health is slowly emerging. A new community of deeply caring people have entered my life, thanks to life-sustaining organizations like Yes to Life, who are doing exceptional work. I am deeply grateful to you all.

How do we trust in the face of enormous challenge?

So, the question is: How do we trust when the rug has been pulled from under our feet after a life-threatening diagnosis or some other catastrophic occurrence, when we are facing into an unknown void, and are mortally afraid?

Can we trust enough to allow ourselves to fully surrender to the storm of emotions and feelings swirling around us at those moments and not move. Can we wait until the storm dies down and there is a modicum of quiet within which we can regain our ground and from where, with the help of family, close friends, and medical professionals, we can begin to step lightly forward, testing the waters, carving out our path, doing the work. The step-by-step work. Can we discover that we have hitherto unknown reservoirs of strength, vulnerability, and courage to draw upon?

Can we realize we are doing our greatest learning at these times? That we will be forever transformed… and can we continue to move forward, hanging in there whilst immersed in the unknown, giving everything to continue to celebrate this life whilst having absolutely no guarantees of the outcome.

Life is challenge

Life inevitably will present us with challenges. My own feeling is that She tests us. It seems the good news is that as an integral part of the whole, we have everything at hand to be able to adapt, transform, uncover, and explore life-generating solutions, that are so much needed at this time.

It seems imperative that each of us find our individual ways to garner our deepest knowing of how best to respond to life’s challenges.

Our culture does not train us to trust our own powers of living and healing, we are not trained to listen to our intuition. Indeed, quite the opposite we are conditioned to be dependent on outer authorities and are rarely invited into a partnership where our voices, that resonate from our deeper knowing, are encouraged or listened to.

I have discovered my own way of grounding is through my body, but there is no one way that fits all. It seems that these traumatic life events offer each one of us the opportunity to dig deeply to discover the intelligence of our inner guidance and as such, ironically, they are perhaps something we can be grateful for. I have heard it said by so many people who have been through or are on a cancer journey that their lives are transforming as a result.

This is an extraordinary response and victory call from the spirit, this desire to flourish in the face of adversity no matter what.

Thriving not just surviving – cancer patients & the planet

My cancer diagnosis was the latest and most serious of a number of life’s tests that I have personally faced in the process of my 64 years on this planet – dancing has been the conduit for showing me how to negotiate through arduous times. Meeting dance was meeting my own desire to learn how to live life fully, but I never dreamt that I could feel the level of aliveness I now feel as a result of my involvement with cancer. Having faced into my own mortality, I now know a level of gratitude for being alive that was not available for me before. It accompanies me in the form of a deep underlying quietness or silence, a sense there is nothing more to gain or prove. I intuit that these lessons I have learned and continue to learn from my illness will be essential in moving forward to face this time of climate emergency as we fight for life on this planet. I believe that as cancer patients & survivors we are serving the earth by seriously undertaking this journey towards wholeness and healing, a journey that transforms our lives in line with a deep caring for life itself.

Waking up to life

It often seems as if life throws us these ultimate challenges to wake us up from the dream of a life half lived. Pushing us to recognize that life is a wild and glorious beast that we could never control. Trying to grasp onto security when we live in a universe that is the antithesis of a safe sanctuary seems to be working against the natural laws that govern us all. These times of enormous challenge stop us in our tracks, demand that we reassess everything, who we are, why we are here, and how much we are willing to give.

When we let go into life, we discover a guiding principle that is none other than our own true nature, who we truly are, a coming home to ourselves at one with the laws that govern this universe – call it Spirit, God, Higher Consciousness, Embodied Intelligence, Authentic Self or any other term that humans use to connect with their sense of a transcendent intelligence that pervades all of life.

We discover that this is our only true sanctity and where we locate deep trust.

Caring enough to live life fully with no guarantees is the way of the warrior

During my research before writing this talk, I came upon a quote from Albert Einstein who said: “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” I could not find the context in which he said this, but it struck me that engaging this question is central to our ability to be able to trust and live life to the full.

In an earlier part of my life, I worked with a spiritual teacher who asked me to come to a fundamental reconning with the question: ‘Is life fundamentally negative or fundamentally positive.’ It was a hugely challenging decision to make on a soul level, but I discovered through intent listening into the place of my deepest knowing that life is fundamentally positive… irrespective of the abundance of negativity that surrounds us which seems to be an integral part of life. Perhaps this question is an important one for us all to give thought to, to help provide us with firm ground when the going gets tough.

It seems to be a measure of our emotional maturity when we are ready and able to shift our focus from having a guarded, personal, and conditional relationship to life & trust, to a place where we are able to decide to do the work it takes to become a trustworthy human being ourselves in service of life as a whole. Being willing to undertake this leap of trust within a world where there are no guarantees is scary yet ultimately empowering.

This is the way of the warrior, and interestingly it often takes a catastrophic life event to get us to realize the importance of not wasting any more time on a conditional relationship to living. It wakes us up to the fact that we want to be fully alive, that we care about life, and that life really matters. To take the risk of giving everything to life now with no guarantees is devotion to life Herself which takes us beyond our own limited perspective.

This it seems to me is the act of living, truly living that is filled with inspiration and insight, daring and risk. Isn’t this what it means to be fully alive? Trust, it seems, is not possible without risk.

Do we have this kind of monumental courage to grasp life by the horns in this way, even in the midst of tremendous hardship. What this looks like is not the romantic notions fed to us in fairy stories. It looks gritty, is often emotionally taxing, physically depleting, lonely, lost, overwhelming, painful, a formidable heroic struggle. Millions of people around the planet today are undergoing these journeys.

In my mother’s case her heroic deed was to decline any medical intervention when her cancer returned at age 85. She did this because she didn’t want to be a further burden on her family.

So, she chose to die calmly at home surrounded by her children. She gave me the greatest gift I have ever received by showing me that there is nothing to fear in death.

To conclude

So, to conclude, I realize this is what the epiphany experience was communicating to me all those years ago. ‘Everything you will ever need is already within you.’

As human animals living on this planet now, imbued with life force, the spirit that breaths through all life forms, we have the power to trust no matter what and to follow our paths fearlessly through life and ultimately into death and the great unknown. It has taken getting cancer to prove beyond any doubt the depth and truth contained in this message that came to me from somewhere within my own being.

Reflecting on this now I see it all as part of the mystery and miracle of life, and why we must never give up on Her no matter what.

Sharing a simple exercise

To end I would like to share with you a simple exercise which helps me to focus and listen to my body, to pay attention to it and to show gratitude. It’s an example of the kinds of practices I share with my students as part of our dance rituals. We can do this sitting in our chairs and don’t worry you won’t be expected to dance!

Reflecting on ‘embodied intelligence’

Before we begin, let’s take a moment to reflect on this question of embodied intelligence.

I would like to ask you to consider your own sense of embodied knowledge and expertise. The ways in which you experience pleasure through moving your bodies. perhaps through simple activities like walking, swimming, or taking a yoga class. I would like to stress that the word ‘pleasure’ is of ultimate importance here

In general, I have found it is often something we pay less attention to, don’t consider as being that important, which we place last on the list of things to do. We don’t prioritize giving ourselves this simple pleasure of moving. We forget the remarkable innate intelligence of our bodies that carry on the processes of life without our being consciously aware of the complexity of the ongoing miracle that is taking place within us.

And we forget that these bodies have been designed to move.

For a moment let’s place our bodies at the center of our attention by doing a short simple internal body scan that I will guide you through, much like a guided meditation.

EXERCISE in LISTENING to the EMBODIED INTELLIGENCE

Please make sure that you are sitting comfortably. I invite you to close your eyes if you find it more relaxing, otherwise you can keep your eyes open allowing a soft focus with downcast eyes. This helps us to feel less distracted by our visual field of awareness. And if you would rather not join the exercise that’s totally fine too.

Take a moment to sense how the weight of your body is resting into the seat of your chair, how your feet are resting on the earth. How are your arms resting? Are they at your side or resting on your lap or onto the arms of your chair? 

How do we sense our weight? 

Through the feedback we get from the places where our bodies connect with other bodies, be it a chair, or the earth through the soles of our feet. Sense the feedback you are receiving from whatever you are touching at this moment. 

How is your weight resting into the back of your chair? How is your body feeling as you sit and pay attention to it? 

As we pay attention to our weight, we are noticing the force of gravity which continually falls through our structure, keeping us connected to the earth. Cosmologist Brian Swimme calls gravity ‘the force of love which binds all things together’. Indeed, without this force nothing would exist, everything would be in a process of disintegration. 

So, this opportunity to feel the weight descending through our tail bones into our chairs is offered to us by the force of gravity or love that binds us in a mutual relationship with each other and our earth. From this perspective of gravity as the alluring force that brings all things together, we can think that it’s not just a one-way relationship, and that as we touch our world, our world touches us back. This is how the physical world offers us support and is the ground of trust.

Can we imagine or feel that whatever you are touching right now is touching you back, offering you support?

This is your true connection and relationship with the world. A clear way of knowing, in every moment as a felt experience, your place on this planet………..pause

Now let’s turn our attention towards our breathing. Take notice of the rhythm of your inhalation and exhalation. This is the life force entering and leaving your body. The force that enlivens our beings from the moment we enter this world, to the moment we leave, which we share with all other sentient beings on this planet, both human and other than human.

Let’s focus on our out breaths. Can we think about working with the force of gravity to release all the things we carry around with us that are unnecessarily complex and cause us to suffer. Breathing out our fears and anxieties, the things that create discomfort to our bodies, minds and spirits. 

Specific things might come to mind or perhaps you can simply give yourself to this sense of letting go, releasing the weight of fear and anxiety, old stale energy, unhelpful thoughts that hold you back. Simply breath them out as you sense your weight falling through your chair into the earth.

Take a few deep breaths focusing on the outbreath and on letting go….. pause

This process of release opens space in the body, space for what is new, fresh and life-enhancing. 

Let’s think about the fact that far beneath our feet there is an almighty fire that is burning, creating immense energy that pushes out to the surface of the planet. As we breath in, imagine that we are breathing in the fire of the earth that fills us with new potential and creativity. 

For a few moments in your own time, focus on the release of your outbreath and the rejuvenation of your inbreath, knowing that we are part of a process of releasing the old and inviting in the new – breathing out the old, breathing in the new………….

Again take a few deeps breaths focusing on letting for of the old, inviting in the new.

Our bodies are an ecosystem at one with the process of life and with the world around us, constantly seeking for balance in relationship with the unseen forces that play through us – clearing the old and inviting the new. This is our nature, the dance of life with which we are an integral part. 

As you sit and breath, take a moment to sense your fellow travelers in this life who are sitting around you, on each side, in front and behind you.. you don’t have to look at them to acknowledge them, you can sense their presences in your field of awareness. See if, in the act of sensing the people around you, you can feel supported by the warmth of their bodies, their processes of living and breathing, their felt relationship with the planet, as you are supporting them in return………….. 

Now let’s see if we can take a moment in the silence to sense the whole of the room engaged in the collective process of breathing, sensing, and supporting. 

See if we can sense the whole room as One Body that is breathing with the earth………..

I now invite you to gently open your eyes –

(KS dancing when public open their eyes)

Thank You

Cancer recurrence in April 2023

Posted on Aug 29, 2024

Why did I make this solo performance?

In April 2023 it was discovered that I had a recurrence of Triple Negative breast cancer that was first diagnosed in April 2020. To my great good fortune the cancer had stayed contained within the lymph nodes in my right arm pit. A CT scan showed no signs of metastatic cancer anywhere else in my body, and it was deemed treatable.

The fact the cancer had stayed contained in my lymph nodes is a minor miracle given the aggressive nature of the Triple Negative cancer. I believe it is because I had spent the last 3 years since returning to Wales in 2020, working with my Integrative Health Dr to keep as healthy as possible. I transformed my diet under her guidance and had regular blood tests looking for any imbalances in any of the systems of my body which she (Dr Nina Fuller-Shavel) addressed with various supplements. I have no doubt that because of her meticulous care I have been given a second chance.

After coming through surgery to remove the lymph nodes in my right armpit followed by a gruesome course of chemotherapy which, according to my oncologist, I have come through with flying colours, I decided to create a solo mapping my cancer journey. I have written a short piece about why I decided to make this performance……..

I have added photos from the performance at Rise Festival 2024.

Photo credit: Alexander Williamson

Why did I create this performance about my cancer journey?

Is it to document a crucially important event in my life?

Is it to elicit sympathy from my audience?

Is it to prove my own resilience at coming through the intensity of the past 3-years?

The Rise Festival Artistic Director Karl Jay-Lewin asked me if I would like to present a second solo performance in the universal hall Findhorn, in May 2024. At the previous year’s festival I had performed my piece entitled:

AIRE

Solo for my Mother

This solo was created to honor my mother who passed away in 2012.

When she died, I imagined her spirit rising up to fly freely with the red kites, magnificent birds that are native in her country of Wales.

My mother inspired in me the desire to seek freedom in my life.

This solo is my way of expressing gratitude to all the women who have fought hard for the rights of women.

This solo is an expression of my desire for all women to be free.

Aire evolved over the course of the 6 years that I performed it, incorporating new sections and perspectives as my life evolved. It included the beginnings of my cancer journey in 2020, and the discovery that I was BRCA2, carrying a gene mutation making me susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer that had been passed down to me through the generations. Curiously this fact has created a sense of connection with my ancestors that I have never felt in any real way before, most especially the female lineage, though the BRCA gene mutation can also be passed through the male lineage. Sharing this information in the performance of Aire seemed to provide an important culmination for the solo that honored my mother, which included ironically the fact that it was through her that I had become a BRCA2 person of interest within the cancer world.

Having now come through a re occurrence of breast cancer and the recommended medical treatments that ended in January 2024, I realized that this second performance could be a conduit for sharing the insights I have had about life, death, illness, and wellness over the course of these last few years.

I therefore accepted Karl’s generous invitation and decided to create a follow up performance – Part II, in which I wanted to share the totality of my cancer journey. My motivation for doing so has been to claim my illness, not as an aberration of life, but as a deeply lived, felt celebration of what is a ‘part of life’, albeit a challenging one. I wanted to deepen the investigation through speaking directly to the heart of the issues, cancer, and what it’s like to face a life-threatening illness, which until relatively recently has been a stigmatized and taboo subject, one which continues to create discomfort and fear for many people. I hoped that through sharing my own experience of the life-giving and liberated energy this event has gifted me with, it could be helpful for others, as inevitably we will all have to face the challenges of an ailing body and death as part of our lives. No one is exempt from this.   

What kickstarted this investigation was the great surprise I felt when I was first diagnosed with cancer, and through the intensity of the subsequent reoccurrence. Despite the challenging surgeries and follow up treatments I have undergone, I discovered that fundamentally I did not change. I am the same person today that I was before getting cancer. This does not tally with any of the ideas I had previously held about what it means to get sick, be sick, or about people who are ‘sick’.

This was shocking to me and has generated many insights relating to commonly held beliefs about illness which only serve to cause division, suffering, a sense of isolation, and a great deal of fear. I have a hunch that it is one of the main reasons we tend to ‘disappear’ when we get sick and are not heard of again until we reappear miraculously ‘healed’, or via the unsettling news that a person has passed away. This can create an aura around sickness as something that happens outside normal life, generating fertile ground for fearful speculation and avoidance. It can create a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

There are so many unquestioned and vague notions around sickness: sickness seen as a form of weakness; bad karma; failure; bad luck; something to be feared and avoided at all costs. Sick people are seen as no longer able to contribute to the fast-paced societies we now live in. They demand for us to slow down, be patient and, most challenging, they remind us that health is something none of us can take for granted. They bring a painful and disturbing reality into our active lives, which few want to be reminded about.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, as odd as this may sound, I felt a sense of relief. Upon reflection I realized this was because I had been living with a nagging fear about illness and death that had been my constant albeit unconscious companion. Once I received my diagnosis, through having to face directly into the disease, something tangible that I had to grapple with, the weight of the constant undercurrent of fear I had been living with lifted from my shoulders. In its place I have discovered a well of liberated energy and sense of purpose that has equipped me to undertake this life-threatening challenge.  

I believe others might be able to relate to this experience, especially given what we now know about the prevalence of cancer and other diseases, and the poisoned environment in which we exist.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I sensed I was betraying others who had viewed me as a role model for my success as a dance improviser, the epitome of health and life-affirming energy. I felt OK about assuming this role and remember the pleasure and confidence I felt inhabiting a strong body and healthy lifestyle. That moment in 2020 when I received the life-changing news I had to deal not only with my own shock and sense of dread as I faced my own mortality, I also had to bear other people’s fears, projections, and ideas around sickness and health. This added to the intensity of the situation, though I understood it to be a manifestation of the unhealthy ways in which we generally view sickness and death in our societies within the western world.

My response from the beginning of this cancer journey therefore has been to speak candidly about my experience through all the stages of my illness and healing, sharing this recent life event just as I would any other part of my life. I have not held back in conversations with family and friends, as well as casual acquaintances and people I am meeting for the first time. It has happened quite spontaneously with a feeling that I have nothing to hide.

What has been so uplifting is that almost unanimously I have encountered a genuine expression of caring from all, as well as a desire to know more about a subject that is rarely discussed directly, more often is mentioned in hushed tones and in relation to ‘someone else’.

These heart-to-heart sharing’s are transforming my narrative around sickness and health, and this is what I want to convey through my work.

The questions I am now asking are: 

What are the people that are less able through sickness and other so called ‘limiting factors’ giving to us all? What are they showing us? Isn’t the knowledge they carry crucial at this time when life is clearly showing us that we need to embrace a radically different relationship to life if we are going to survive as a species?

I have been deeply humbled going through this cancer crisis. I don’t know where it is leading me, but I can say unequivocally that it has and is continuing to transform and deepen my relationship with life. I have had the great good fortune to meet many others on this path who have been through or are facing similar life-threatening illnesses and are expressing a kind of joy-filled vulnerability and determination to live that is profoundly moving, and nothing less than heroic. Many are embracing positive life-transformations through dealing with their health crisis’s.  

In the light of all of this, my perspective on life has been turned on its head and I am truly grateful for the learning I have been afforded through encountering this disease. It is now my lived experience that I am free of the fear that I had not realised was holding me back from living fully. Holding me back from realizing the full potential of what it means to be a human being who has been graced with the sacredness of life on this miraculous planet.

It is for this reason that I have created this solo performance; to share with others my newly discovered understanding that sickness and death are part of life’s rich learning, which has empowered me/us to embrace this unavoidable part of life with courage and clarity. I am hoping it might help others to do the same, so we can reach beyond the powerful narratives we carry that undermine our capacities to live full and satisfying lives together, through all the many challenges that life throws at us.  

Quotes from audience members who saw Subterranéa performed at the Rise Festival May 2024:

It was a delight and honour to present this extraordinary work at Dance North Scotland Rise festival in May. The conversations it stimulated are still going strong. See it if you can.

            Karl Jay-Lewin

I saw this in Scotland, and it made me cry with joy for being alive

            Rachel Latitia Deadman

Revelations of Life as a Dance Improviser

Posted on Oct 24, 2022

Kirstie Simson

To inhale is to allow the world to come into us–the world is in us–and to exhale is to project ourselves into the world that we are. To be in the world is not simply to find oneself in a final horizon containing everything that we are and will be able to perceive, live, or dream. From the moment we start to live, think, perceive, dream, breathe, the world in its infinite details is in us, materially and spiritually penetrating our body and our soul [âme], giving form, consistency, and reality to everything that we are. The world is not a place, it is a state of immersion of each thing in all other things, the mixture that instantaneously reverses the relation of topological inherence.

  Coccia, 2019, p. 66/67

Since young adulthood, my entire life has been centered around the practice of dance improvisation. As an artist who has engaged in rigorous practice for over forty years, I make the case that artistic practice helps to develop resilience in the face of catastrophe. From my own experience, it seems that embodied intelligence—the heart of improvisation—is advantageous in the momentous challenge of shifting our consciousness from a human-centric perspective to a lived understanding that we are an integral part of the whole of life. I share this perspective through my teaching and performing practices. My knowledge encompasses knowledges that have been gleaned from focused attention to the songs emanating from my own body, and that of a long line of movement-explorers, all of whom added their unique voices and reflections on the times we live through. An attitude of profound respect and care for all aspects of life arises.

To make my case, I share how my own art practice has shaped me—from my first impactful encounter with dance improvisation to present turbulent times. This is not intended as some kind of prescription, but rather as an example of how practice can be a bedrock of ongoing revelation from which to keep responding to the continual challenges that life’s unfolding presents.

Let me take you back to Spring 1981. I was fresh out of college and excited to be dancing with the Rosemary Butcher Dance Company, based at the Riverside Studios in London. In those days there was an annual dance festival in an exquisite location at Dartington College in Devon, England.

In 1925 pioneers Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst bought the neglected 14^th century Dartington Estate and began the “Dartington Experiment,” setting up a host of forestry, farming and educational projects. Over the years Dartington attracted some of the greatest artists, educators, and political philosophers of the 20th century. It was at Dartington Hall that the National Health Service and the British Arts Council saw their beginnings. It housed a prestigious Arts College and today is home to Schumacher College, famous for ecology-centered programs of study. This history gives the place a mythical aura that is tangible the moment you enter the grounds of the estate via the long driveway, flanked on both sides by ancient oak trees with the river Dart meandering far below. Without doubt, Dartington is a special place, even a ‘power spot,’ if you believe in such things.

Since the early 1970’s to the mid 1980’s, dancer, teacher, and choreographer Mary Fulkerson was Head of Dance at Dartington College. She has been credited with being initially responsible for bringing the idea of what we now refer to as somatic dance practices to Europe. She engaged Steve Paxton, founder of the dance form Contact Improvisation, as a resident teacher and brought over many of the new dance idioms coming out of the USA at that time. For us UK dance folks it was especially thrilling to congregate at the Dartington Festival each year to witness and engage with these new ideas and principles.

I had just finished a three-year formal dance training at the Laban Center in London, where I instinctively resisted the focus on control and dominance over the body that formed the heart of the physical instruction we received. I did not like the feeling of fighting ‘against’ my body. I had fallen in love with the freedom of moving, first discovered on the sports fields at school, while shying away from the common obsession with competition. It struck me that the competition sabotaged the powerful magic at the core of the moving body; I began to wonder about what I perceived to be a disconnect in our relationship with our human bodies. Could this be tied to a fundamental fear of the overwhelmingly powerful force of life that pervades all sentience on this planet, and which manifests as our own embodied intelligence? I trace a connection to the dominance over our bodies that so much of 20th century Euro-American dance as a performing art has come to represent, with its focus on technical mastery that often involves striving for goals that are attainable only at a high price. This approach frequently engenders a mindset of comparison, competition, and pressure to ‘stand out,’ while striving to be the ‘best.’ I lost interest in sport when I realized that pursuing it as a career meant a life dedicated to ‘beating’ others, only to find this same competitive pressure in my dance world.

In recent years I began to consider how this approach to the body that I experienced in my training is allied with theaspiration for dominance, control and power that drives humans of modernity in battles against each other and against ‘nature’, which we now unequivocally recognize destroys the planet. This phenomena, gaining dominance in the modern techno-industrial Western world, is inherent to the emergence of global capitalism and colonialism; it infiltrates all aspects of capitalist and neoliberal societies. Tragically, much of the rest of the world has been drawn to follow our lead, or else we, the West, colonize cultures and force them to adopt aspirations-to-power as a mode of being.

I can honestly say that the trip to the Dartington Festival in 1981 transformed my life. My prior training both at school and college had left me in a state of anxiety about the prospect of my future, with fundamental questions about my own worth. Was I good enough? Did I have what it took to succeed? It was while participating in one of Steve Paxton’s Contact Improvisation classes, performing a simple exercise sharing my center of gravity with a fellow participant, that I had an epiphany. What I remember now was an experience of ‘prior knowing’ that came to me with a clear message. “All I would ever need to know in this life was already inherently present within me.” It was that simple, yet I knew it was ALL encompassing and would demand a very different approach to life from the one I had hitherto followed. I intuited that going forward, my work was going to be about weeding out and discarding all the erroneous ideas, habits, and learnings I had picked up that would obscure my realization from manifesting in myself as my self. In other words, I was embarking on a voyage of discovery—one that would reveal to me my own unique expression of the whole.

In that moment of epiphany in Steve Paxton’s class, my relationship to life shifted from one of fear and anxiety to one that exalts in the potential for life-long learning. This profoundly liberating understanding rendered me ecstatic, and I have memories of running through the fields after class with tears of joy streaming down my face, in awe of the fact that this powerful revelation had communicated itself through my physical form. Something seemed important about my having been in connection with another person when this realization occurred, and I resolved to explore this collaborative ‘being together’ in my work. I realized that anything I would try to ‘build,’ or anyone I would try to ‘become,’ would be a product of a partial understanding, and as such would not be a true reflection of the ‘Self’ that I was seeking. I was going to attempt to become an expert in ‘undoing,’ and in this process of letting go, I hoped to gain a sensitivity to my being and the vibrational frequency of life’s instructions. Applying myself to a rigorous dance practice and other supporting practices that were life affirming, as opposed to life denying, was the method through which I would conduct my investigation. 

I intuited then, what I would later go on to study consciously, that we are not separate from life and each other. We are born into this world as an integral part of an awe-inspiring experiment to which we, alongside all our extended families in the natural world, belong. The scientists tell us our bodies are created from star dust… how could we logically conclude that we are separate from and superior to life-itself? This precept is irrational, yet it defines the reality we learn and live by in standard modern Western culture. We work against life, just as in some traditional dance trainings we may work against our bodies.

In my pedagogy I have tried to come up with simple physical scores and exercises that allow us to practice principles of living. I glean my inspiration from an embodied philosophy and passion for the Art of Improvisation in collaboration with others. I often engage physical contact as a mode of direct communication and have practiced this non-verbal language of the body for over four decades.

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Hands that Don’t Want Anything

A duet form

In this exercise a partner moves from one side of the space to the other,

exploring and enjoying their relationship with the earth, listening to how
the earth supports and carries them, how it impacts them as they swim
across its surface. Shedding complexity and anxiety with each outbreath,
they focus on breathing in fresh energy from the fire at the center of the earth.

Their ally gently lays hands on their body to accompany them as they journey
across the space. Employing ‘listening hands,’ the partner is careful not to
disturb their moving meditation.

The image is that these hands

‘Don’t Want Anything’

The hands listen to the moving body with a light yet definite conscious
presence of support. Is it possible to simply accompany and be
together with another person, witnessing/sensing/listening
to the innate intelligence in their body as they move?

Question: Is it possible to ‘Not Want Anything?’

From that moment of realization in Paxton’s class, I decided then and there that I was an ‘Improviser,’ and that going forward I would listen to my body. I stopped taking all classes in structured dance techniques that seemed to demand conformity to other people’s aesthetic ideals and models of assessment, or choreographic studies that promoted set vocabularies. I had no reason anymore to continue this avenue of research. Instead, I dedicated myself to studying improvisation and related somatic work. When I moved with this newly discovered perspective, I felt connected to a primal sense of myself that was at one with the energy of life, which I experienced as deeply inspiring, and which divulged meaningful revelations pertaining to self-discovery and relationship to all aspects of being alive.

I began teaching improvisation in 1981 immediately on my return to London from Dartington College and have always found teaching and performing to be joyfully challenging where my principles are put to the test. As my path progressed, I was drawn to study with particular teachers in Aikido, spiritual disciplines and the Alexander Technique. I found myself working on the periphery of what is referred to as ‘the dance world’. My method is one of continued exploration, constant questioning, deep listening to the experience of the articulation of my embodied self. I am endlessly fascinated by how this translates into conscious understanding—attending and listening to the connected intelligence that speaks through my and my partners’ forms.

From this learning I have crafted my teaching practices and have been keenly interested in how these practices translate and affect my daily living. I feel tremendously privileged to have been able to share my love of dance with people around the globe. Have I made sacrifices along the way? Some could say so. It has been difficult for me to create romantic partnerships and a family of my own, in part because of my itinerant lifestyle, though I intuited early on that this aspect of life would not be part of my path. I live with no regrets.

Reflections on the Life Practice of Dance

What does ‘listening to the body’ entail? What are the practices?

I have witnessed psychic structures at work in the field of improvisation, both in classes and most notably in collaborative performance, when pressure is asserted on the ego of the individual who is in the act of performing. I noticed that when under pressure, if the performer focuses more on themselves than on the preciousness of connection in the context of working closely with others, the resulting actions can be tainted by gross or subtle forms of aggression that are often unconscious, stemming from unexamined parts of ourselves. When this happens, the performance space is rendered unsafe, and the magical sphere of unlimited potential is compromised. That vivid landscape of sensitivity and vulnerability which offers potential for the exploration of unknown possibilities shuts down, leaving in its place an atmosphere that predicates a predictable show of conditioned behaviors and responses. In improvisation there are no rules to help contain or temper our darker impulses that emerge under duress; therefore, the improviser has an imperative to face and take responsibility for their own shadow. It is an integral and fascinating part of practicing freedom. The heart of the practice is to transform negative to positive. Improvisation is the practice of sensitizing the instrument, attuning it to its connection with the whole, and therefore a greater awareness of what is working against wholeness will naturally arise in consciousness.

Personally, through my practice I have been able to work through issues that arose from a difficult childhood with an alcoholic father, whose split personality caused deep trauma within our family. I loved the sober man but could not love the inebriated one, which deeply disturbed me growing up. I suffered sexual abuse by family ‘friends’ and grew up understanding that human culture is not necessarily safe. Through the carefully tendered space of my practice, I gained a perspective on past trauma and have been able to reclaim the body that was taken from me. I resolved to become ‘one’ person who could be trustworthy in any situation. Teaching and performing offered me the platform through which I could endeavor to transform anger, the desire for revenge, the personal need for attention and acclaim, to create space for the discovery of caring, listening, and not imposing on life and others.

“Each individual person has the power of participating in the transformation of the whole Earth. The evil that reaches you after so many millions of years of existence can be absorbed and transformed. You have the power to accept the suffering, to refuse to pass it on to another, to forgive, to end the needless torment, and, most of all, to transmute evil into energy for the vitality of the whole.”                                                                           Swimme, 2001. P. 81

Improvisation is an Art form that includes the Art of Healing and Seeking Wholeness.

It is also the:

Art of Living

Art of Transformation

Art of Awareness

Art of Listening

Art of Learning

Art of Communication

Art of Creating

Art of Being Created

Art of Acceptance

Art of Facing Challenge

Art of Embracing the Unknown

Art of Embracing Failure

Art of Generosity

Art of Caring

Art of Sharing

Art of Practicing Empathy

Art of Gaining Self Knowledge

Art of Practicing Choice Making

Art of Saying Yes, and sometimes No

Art of Reclaiming Power

Art of Maintaining Perspective in the Face of Challenge

Art of transforming Negative to Positive

I am sure each one of you can add your own understanding to my list.

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Eyes Closed Trios

Practicing letting go of control, opening awareness, growing trust:

Each partner gets to experience this eyes-closed sequence for approximately 1 hour.

Closing their eyes, partner 1 receives body work while lying on their back on the earth.
The work is given by 2 other partners who follow a specific pattern of instruction
given by the facilitator.

Once the body work is complete, the receiver (partner 1) begins to move slowly while maintaining eyes closed, initially exploring their relationship with the earth.

As they build their moving up from the earth, they begin to explore their partners’
potential for offering support, for being their eyes.

Once partner 1 makes it onto their feet, the open-eyed caretakers begin to
accompany them through the space.

Once all closed-eyed people are being moved around the space, caretakers can leave
their home base trio and visit other groups. In this way closed-eyed folks get
to experience different energies moving with them.

Important principles:

Give a lot of space when working with closed-eyed partners.

Don’t manipulate closed-eyed partners.

Respect their vulnerability.

Sensitive use of touch.

Allow yourself to ‘receive’ while guiding.

Respect your own vulnerability and sense of caring.

After 1-hour the facilitator instructs partners to return to their original trios.

Partner 1 opens their eyes, and the trio takes some time to dialogue
about their experience of the journey.

Follow the same sequence twice more so everyone gets to taste
the hour-long progression with eyes closed.

In my experience this score deepens as we go through the 3 hours of work,
and it can be tremendously affecting for all involved.

In March 2020 the world plunges into a global pandemic. At the time I had been teaching for thirteen years in an American University, something which was a constant anathema to me as working within an Institution of Higher Education was at odds with my fundamental sense of who I am. I had specifically decided not to go to university at age eighteen, as I instinctively knew it was not where I would do my deepest learning.

Working for the university challenged me on many levels, the most difficult being that the principles practiced within the institution differed from my own, yet I learned a great deal from my involvement with Academia. The opportunity to learn more about racial injustice and inequality is an area of vital importance that I take away with me, which calls for my ongoing attention and work. It is the aspect of my years in Academia that holds lasting impact. At the beginning of my tenure, I told myself that I would leave when I felt my spirit begin to wane. That time arrived in 2020 when I resolved to take early retirement. What I had not expected was that it was my body and not my spirit that had begun to expire.

At the beginning of March 2020, I was diagnosed with Triple Negative breast cancer, which is considered to be more aggressive and have a poorer prognosis than other types of breast cancer. The second shock came when I tested positive to being a BRCA2 gene mutation carrier which leaves women susceptible to breast and ovarian cancers, and men to breast and prostate cancer. Cancer more than any other disease conjures up a sense of dread for us. It is widely recognized that in the West it is now at epidemic proportions, with an estimated one in three women expected to be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime, and one in two men (Whiteman, 2015). Around 10% of cancers are known to be caused by genetic predispositions; it is now generally accepted that environmental issues such as pollution, pesticides, food additives, etc., as well as poor lifestyle choices including unhealthy eating and drinking habits, plus stress due to our fast-paced modern lifestyles, have proven to be contributing factors to the exponential growth of the disease. Prior to the 1940’s, if a person was diagnosed with the BRCA 1 or 2 gene mutation there was a 24% chance they would develop cancer by the age of 50. After the 1940’s, with the acceleration of industrialization and the widespread use of chemical pesticides, that number has risen to a shocking 67% chance of getting the disease (King, Marks, and Mandell, 2003).

I knew something was wrong when I was ushered into a different room in the hospital from the other consultation rooms I had previously visited. I can still clearly see the arrangement of table and chairs, the box of tissues that had been carefully placed close to where I was asked to sit. The doctor arrived moments later and took a seat. When she delivered my cancer diagnosis, she sat at a distance on the opposite side of the room which seemed incongruous. I later wondered why she had not sat closer, where her physical proximity could have offered me some reassurance and comfort. Was her bizarre choice made due to fear of contracting the virus? By great good fortune my tumor was discovered at the beginning stages of growth thanks to a 3D mammogram and an alert technician. I was told it was treatable.

It was oddly comforting to me to realize that even in the midst of receiving this harrowing news, part of my awareness was awake to the details of what was occurring. I remained focused and did not feel diminished or fall into self-concern. Was I afraid? Yes, I experienced dread in the pit of my stomach; but more than anything else, as a practiced improviser I stayed calm, aware, and focused on the imperative to find out what all this meant, and how it would impact my life. I can honestly say that this was the attitude I maintained throughout the few weeks that followed as my treatment options changed from a lumpectomy, followed by radiation, to a double mastectomy followed some months later by the removal of my ovaries and fallopian tubes, once my BRCA2 status had been discovered. My body held up remarkably well throughout the surgeries and process of healing, for which surely, I can thank my years of movement.

Of course, there have been highs and lows, but something deeper has sustained me. My cancer journey began at precisely the same time as the first Covid lock down, forcing me to rely almost exclusively on my own composure and judgement as I negotiated the countless meetings with doctors, nurses, and my oncologist, to decide the best course of treatment. I knew that as I faced my own mortality I was not alone. All over the world millions of people were isolated and facing the same mortal fear of dying. I intuited that the reason my body became sick was directly connected to the ailing body of our planet for which I own my share of responsibility. This gave me the strength to face my illness and to commit wholeheartedly to doing everything in my power to heal my body as part of the planetary healing, which constitutes the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. This I understood was the challenge life had thrown at me, that would guide the next phase of my life. Most importantly, friends came to my aid in deeply moving ways. In a very real way, I understood the importance of living within a supportive community, and perhaps for the first time in my life I let in that I was loved. 

I noted with some surprise that when I was told I had cancer, I experienced relief. In retrospect, I realized that I have lived with the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease, a vague presence hovering at the edge of my consciousness. Perhaps I am not alone in this – a pervasive fear of sickness and the inevitability of death? Yet the moment this became an unavoidable reality, the fear was stripped of its power, and I felt liberated from the constraints fear imposes on our hearts and minds. I learned that in the act of confronting catastrophe head-on, we are more resilient than we imagine ourselves to be.

Reflections on the Life Practice of Dance

Could this be called a practice of intuition?

The practice of Improvisation is an open hearted and curiosity-filled acceptance of what arrives in every moment, maintaining composure and awareness in the face of challenge, processing all relevant information, split second judgment leading to a generous response and appropriate action. All this happens at a speed faster than the mind can comprehend. Pre-thought, the heart races with the awareness of a make-or-break moment. Moving through experience with an eye on the infinitesimal details of what is occurring. Do or die. Standing firmly in one’s allegiance to taking responsibility for one’s shadow makes it possible to risk letting go. Trusting the intelligence to be able to process the information in split second timing. Trusting the ‘knowing’ that ensures right response. This is not frontal lobe activity, rather it is movement in the reptilian brain at the base of the skull, ancient survival wisdom.

At the time, I also noticed that despite having cancer I, Kirstie, did not fundamentally change. Supported by my attitude towards life, harvested from knowledge built over the years of dedicated practice, I was touched to discover that my sense of humor never failed me. This did not tally with my prior perceptions of what ‘being sick’ would look, or feel, like. Indeed, looking back I see that throughout my health crisis I felt alert and energized facing into each new challenge as it arose, much as I do when I participate in an improvised performance, or negotiate teaching a class. This is not how I expected this cancer journey to unfold, and it gave me much insight into how we project our own fear onto those who suffer sickness. In our eyes they can seem ‘changed’, the ‘others’ who we are no longer totally aligned with.

When life is good there is a thrilling sense of freedom that calls to be fully engaged with, and joyfully expressed. When difficulties emerge, as they inevitably will, and the path forward seems perilous, the work begins in earnest and our understanding and grounding in holistic practice is put to the test. Emotionally this is not pleasing for us; yet it is where the profound satisfaction of humble learning, deepening understanding and strengthening occurs. Life inevitably will present us with challenges. Where did we get the idea that it should be easy? The good news is that as an integral part of the whole, we have everything at hand to be able to adapt, transform, uncover, and explore life-generating solutions, that are so much needed at this time.

Reflections on the Life Practice of Dance

A Life-Affirming Practice

In the calm after a storm there is an important space for processing what has occurred, to honestly face the measure of success of one’s actions: Sniffing out short comings, the awareness of the movement of ego. Breathing—absorbing the learning back into one’s being. Trusting the process, not wasting precious time attempting to hold onto anything. Lightness of being and the freedom to move forward. No time for self-congratulation or regret. The experience is one of being ‘fully engaged and alive.’ Energized, activated yet at peace, deeply rooted. It is an act of love, embracing authenticity, the thrill of meeting the unknown, holding firm, resisting the temptation to fracture in the face of the wild unpredictability of life.

There is great relevance in recognizing the importance of grounding our lives in life-affirming embodied practices that develop intuition, big heartedness, wisdom, and resilience. Knowing that we face an unknown and unsettled future beset with catastrophic climate events and its ripple effects, it seems imperative that we look for ways to prepare ourselves to be available in this fight for life. It’s likely this will engender the transformation that life is demanding of us at this time. Seen in this light, it is an extraordinary time to be alive and available, to fully participate in this act of worship. It seems important that each one of us finds our own way in this venture, as the diversity of all our voices joining together seems imperative for radical transformation to occur. It also seems important that we find safe places and spaces that support our deeper work. Dartington was the space that offered me the perfect catalyst for kickstarting my ongoing journey towards wholeness all those years ago, and without doubt I feel my various trainings, art practices, and safe spaces along the way, have helped prepare me to meet this moment.

In August 2020 I returned to the resplendent natural environment of Wales to heal. I called it my time of self-wilding, recovering from cancer and the time spent in the enclosure of the university. For the past twelve months I have found my safe space immersed in nature—sitting beside, and swimming in the rivers, with an intention to do nothing but be held in the power of nature’s magnificence; to breath it in and be grateful,knowing it would be central to bringing my body back into balance. This is now my practice, along with a restricted diet and immune boosting supplements prescribed through my relationship with a brilliant Integrative Health doctor in the UK, Doctor Nina Fuller-Shavel. I am surprised to discover that what is being demanded of me right now, is to dive deeply into learning about how to care for myself, not from an adherence to any dogmatic belief systems, but from the necessity to be sensitive to the restoration of balance within my system that has become imbalanced. This it seems to me is the same work that needs to be done to restore planetary health.

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The Watching Journey

Practicing seeing and being seen. A duet form

Attuning to each other’s breathing, begin lying on the earth
resting your head on your partner’s stomach,
feeling the rise and fall of their breathing – changeover.

Rest your legs on your partner’s stomach, breathing the legs – changeover.

Rest back-to-back with your partner and enjoy this support.

Spend some time moving with the support of your partner’s back.
 Begin to dance a dance of moving away from that support
 and enjoy playing with the challenge of leaving each other.

Once you finally come apart, turn to face and see each other.

One person performs a short solo for their partner –
a little movement disclosure or story.
The other partner witnesses the solo
and responds with their own contribution.

Initially performed from the seated position,
gradually changing levels,
spend some time offering the solos back and forth,
until you arrive in standing and can move around the space.

At this point include in your solo showing your partner
how you interact
with the things in your environment,
including interactions with other people.

Naturally as more movement permeates the space,
the eyes will be drawn to look at other people.
Allow the focus on the one partner
to dissolve and be replaced with a curiosity
about moving with and witnessing others/all.

.

It’s important to remember
that at any point during this collective sharing of solos
you can choose to stop and watch.
The energy of your attention to witnessing
anchors the space for the movers.

After a given time,
the facilitator brings participants back to their original partners,
 and gives them time
to discuss what happened on their journeys.

Undeniably, dancing has saved my life. I understand now, more than ever, the profound implications of the work I have been passionately involved with since that day in early 1980 when I met Steve Paxton and shared in his exploration of Contact Improvisation. Through that encounter I entered my own journey with dance improvisation, opening to the space of vulnerability where the force of creativity infected me with her delightful free play. Through my practice, which is dedicated to a different way of being with others and the world, my experience proves to me that the knowledge which arises through attentive listening to the body’s connected wisdom is key to our survival.

Works Cited:

Coccia, E. (2018) The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture. 2^nd edn. Medford, MA. Polity

Swimme, B. (2001) The Universe is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story.  Rochester, Vt. Bear & Company

King, M-C., Marks J. H., Mandell J. B., et al., (2003) “Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risks Due to Inherited Mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2,” Science 302, no. 5645: 643-46

Whiteman, H. (2015). “1 in 2 people will develop cancer in their lifetime,” Medical News Today. Available at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/288916 (Accessed: April 5 2022)

Acknowledgement: I would like to thank the thousands of people I have danced with and taught since I began my dance journey for giving me the opportunity to continually refine my art form. Thanks also to Mary Adams, Pat Knowles, Liora Bresler and Tim Dean for their support in helping me translate my embodied language into verbal articulation.

Subterranéa

Posted on Aug 09, 2024

May, 2024 I created a new solo

Subterranéa

This solo is the next step on Kirstie’s journey through dance and life.

Evolving from 45 years of dedicated dance practice, and wide renown as a leading light in the art of improvisation, Kirstie shares her story of dealing with a life-threatening health crisis: cancer, and its recurrence. Through her art, traversing movement and text, she conveys the underlying philosophies that have emerged through the embodied practices which have supported her to face, and engage with, life’s challenges.

‘When life is good there is a thrilling sense of freedom that calls to be fully engaged with, and joyfully expressed. When difficulties emerge, as they inevitably will, and the path forward seems perilous, the work begins in earnest and our understanding and grounding in holistic practice is put to the test. Emotionally this is not pleasing for us; yet it is where the profound satisfaction of humble learning, deepening understanding and strengthening occurs. Life inevitably will present us with challenges. Where did we get the idea that it should be easy? The good news is that as an integral part of the whole, we have everything at hand to be able to adapt, transform, uncover, and explore life-generating solutions, that are so much needed at this time.’

Subterranéa explores our resilience in the face of adversity, how we make sense of life through telling our stories, and Kirstie’s experience of the intersection between her health crisis & the planetary crisis we are collectively facing.

Photographer: Alexander Williamson