Saturday, 3. December.  Second experiment with bringing the blog to life. My classes are so technical, but most of the students are there because of the blog. So I decided it’s necessary to bring the blog into the classroom.

I don’t promise that my monthly MetaThema class will always be Socio-Emotional-Poetry. I also want a space to share with students my own most profound technical work, my cutting edge of physicality.

I decided to start with one of the biggest themes in the blog: gender/roles. I wanted to bring to life the way that I dance the roles, the Mark and the Revel, based on my most recent blogpost about the roles’ liberatory possibilities.

The Revel’s gift is her taut musculature and her capacity to witness contradiction, her comfort with the unknown.

Her readiness and companionship makes it possible for her Mark to reach for his unknown, to let forth profound, perhaps divine, creativity that he does not understand or control, and has not yet seen.

Understanding that any given Mark may not be ready for this, and that it could be months or years before any Revel has the honor to accompany the emergence of  her partner’s divine, we practice.

We did four exercises, by candlelight. And there is no need for a video of this course.

We did not change partners during this 45 minute class.

1. In order for the Mark to be free to create, he needs to be unhindered by the distraction of controlling the Revel, specifically the distraction of holding her back. We want to make sure that he is always focused on the direction of intention. To free him, the Revel takes pride in staying on her base leg. The goal of this exercise is that the mark has zero extra tension.  He can give feedback to the revel until this is achieved.
2. The Revel realizes her body as a gift. During every 1st and second projection, the Revel stretchs her base and free legs to ensure her muscle chains are active. She gives this gift of taut and alive muscles to the Mark. In this exercise he realizes this gift by not taking any actions that do not work through and with this gift.
3. During this exercise each dancer repeats a mantra to themselves about once every 10-30 seconds. (Not constantly.)
   Mark’s mantra: I TRUST her.
   Revel’s mantra: I’m here for HIM.
4. In the final exercise, the Revel continues with all of the work from 1-3 and the Mark feels for the unknown inside of himself and tasks risks!

My experience with my own exhortations…

I danced exercises 3 and 4 in both roles. Although I usually Revel based on this theory, as a Mark I’m a quite typical kontrolfreak. When I danced the “Trust” mantra as the Mark, I was surprised to find that I didn’t need (or want) my regular pathways. I was more able to allow new experiences to open and not to try to take responsibility for getting the Revel to do what I want. If she didn’t get my idea, I let her go to hers.

Later at a milonga I danced with a Revel who I had formerly perceived as not very skilled. This time I realized that the problem is less her skill than the fact she is dancing for herself, not for me. She breaks her own concentration and our connection to do movements that she feels like doing.