Category Archives: the dance

Improvisation Life

Ingrid Schatz, who has danced with me for the past 15 years, told me of a recent study showing that movement improvisation has been shown to be the greatest antidote to dementia!  Nearly four years ago I lost my mother to Alzheimer’s disease, after eight years of losing her piece by piece in excruciating increments.  I wonder what might have been different had I engaged her in some kind of movement play.  Improvising turns on the brain’s circuitry, creating new pathways and connections.  Improvising, we don’t now where we are going, we are traveling through time and space without a map, following the wild and ragged heart of the body.  Horse Dancing at its best, really.  The continual, present-centered, unfolding bodily conversation with yourself, a horse, a lover.  A way to get unstuck from the rote, the habitual, the usual.  Try this:  take five minutes sometime today and lie down in a quiet spot and just let your body move in any way that it wants.  Little, big, fast, slow – doesn’t matter.  No editor, no instructor, no judge.  Listen to the body.  Let it speak.

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The Kind Horse

Some horses in my life have a generosity of spirit that makes them particularly precious to me.  My Andalusian stallion Capprichio is one.  The Mustang stallion Nelson is another.  The glorious Friesian, Sanne, is another.  These horses seem to have time to just be, to stand with you, to ask nothing.  Just share breath and space.  I think it has to do with a certain confidence that they share.  Other horses can nudge and fidget – want to know what is next or why are you there.  I find myself drawn to these three because there is a sense of kindness and wholeness about them. Moments spent with them – grazing, standing, stroking, even training – are healing, calming, deeply refreshing.  Horse peace.

What is Horse Dancing?

from the performance at Equine Advocates

 

I have been a dancer and a lover of horses most of my life.  Much of that time was in fact an out of body experience.  Years of dance training meant pushing the body, often with very little awareness of what my own body was telling me about pain and limitation.  My body was a first of all a vehicle for dancing – I expected it to work.   When I found myself hungering to dance with horses, not just ride them, but draw together my two great passions – horses and dance – I discovered to my surprise that it was the horses that brought me most deeply into my body.  By learning to communicate clearly with them through the shared language of movement and touch, I also learned how to live more fully and attentively in my own body. Horse Dancing bridges my experiences with horses and my lifelong practice as a mover.  It is about what horses can teach us about the wild and subtle language of the body.