Ecstatic Dance Houston: SMALL STEPS = GIANT LEAPS with Ivan

TIME CHANGE THIS WEEK ONLY: Warm Up 9:30 Opening Circle 10 AM, DANCE ENDS at 12 NOON. (match need to use our space for Family Fun Day at 12 noon) ::::::Ecstatic Dance Evolution Theme::::::: SMALL STEPS = GIANT LEAPS with guest deejay Ivan Daniel Espinosa! “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” — Neil Armstrong For the past 4 years, I have been passionately engaged in the study and exploration of Butoh, an avant-garde form of dance that was developed in Japan in the 1950’s. Butoh was the key artistic influence behind my theatre work as an undergraduate student and continues to serve as a creative inspiration for my current master’s thesis research at New York University. Often recognized by its extreme slow motion, Butoh dancers are challenged to move through space within a more gradual, methodical, patient structure of time. This “alternative” way of perceiving and moving through space gives time a density different from its everyday density. It lends it a materiality not ordinarily had when shuffling from home, car, gym, office, shopping malls, rush hour traffic, etc. In this slowed down, “altered” mode of moving through the world, spaces once perceived as “ordinary” or “mundane” can transform into universes and mini-universes beaming with spiritual and artistic significance. Our surroundings can become landscapes of vibrant matter for our bodies to interact with, exchanging possibilities with every textured surface and shivering entity that we happen to encounter. I have experienced this sensation at Sunday morning DanceEvolution as well. In the dance, we practice “dropping in” and allowing the music to take our entire sensorium — our bodies and physical senses, along with our minds and hearts — on an immersive journey. We are encouraged to put our cell phones away and refrain from chit chat on the dance floor so we can be swept away into something bigger than us, surrendering again and again to the power of freeform movement. Possessed by the beat, by the thrill of music that drives me ever deeper inside, “ordinary movements” often take on a new life for me in the dance. Arms transform into dancing paintbrushes of vitality, while hands and fingertips shine as golden jewels. Voices become choirs and footstompings become volcanic eruptions. A gentle touch or distant gaze fill my dance with new inspiration. The floor becomes the Earth, the air becomes the cosmos. Sometimes I’ve even come cross and become transformed by unexpected objects on the dance floor from small toys and long scarves to a tiny feather. When I dance, everything is a teacher. Everything is a gift. My invitation for this week’s dance is to notice what comes alive when we engage our dancing bodies more thoroughly and meticulously, moment to moment, surface to surface, breath to breath. What reawakens when we dance with our fingertips and toes, with the back of our neck and the tip of our head? And how can we move through the space knowing that even gentle, slow movements can ignite a firestorm of energy and vitality? Perhaps we can discover what philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls the “immanent expressiveness” of the body, an aliveness that “extends, as we shall see, to the whole sensible world, and our gaze, prompted by the experience of our own body, will discover in all other ‘objects’ the miracle of expression.” Sincerely, Ivan Espinosa More Info: http://ecstaticdanceevolution.com/dance-calendar/