Generosity

One of the best acting teachers I ever had once said "The true generosity of an actor is not to give. It is to receive."

I am watching the Paul Taylor dance troupe on TV. The dancers in his "Brandenburgs" have great power and flexibility but with Bach's structured music and the slightly old fashioned movements they seem somewhat fake and unreal at first. Huge smiles on their faces tho as they push themselves through space to perfection.

The cast is mostly male with 3 women. One of the men is the lead dancer. The women are dancing by themselves but when he enters he instantly becomes the focus of all three. I almost turn it off - I have done this particular dance my whole life. I know that fixed smile, that push to be perfect, to compete against other women when the special man enters the room.

To continue watching I need a metaphor that isn't so personal, so I make the women birds or flowers and the gorgeous blond man the sun. Now their movement takes on a different cast, instead of flirting or basking in attention one after the other they are simply feeling the beauty of the sun's warmth and brightness and it is bringing them to life.

I think about a dance concert I went to a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was dancing - on a very small stage in a very small room with about 20 other dancers. The audience wasn't more than 100 people. It was extremely intimate.

C., my friend, is a professional dancer. I have a bit of understanding of what that means in terms of dedication and discipline and I am proud to know her.

As she dances I cannot take my eyes off of her. I keep checking to see if there is a special effect in the lights - some small blocking or costuming effect that draws the eye. But it is her movement - clear in intention, rooted and grounded low in the body. Others are emoting as they dance, she is simply being. I catch her looking at the other dancers - searching them for the inspiration for her next step.

Receiving it, she lets it run through her body and come out as a shape or a step or a leap. The reason I keep looking at C is because she is alive and living up there even though they are all moving.

To learn a dance you work for a time without the music - a fact I was very surprised to learn. Instead, it is the rhythm, the beat and the steps you must learn. "Step step step together and TURN!  When it is memorized by the body, eventually the words fall away and the movement makes its own sense. At those rehearsals, the only accompaniment is a clapping hand and the slapping feet as they hit the floor, or the involuntary grunts and breath of a number of dancers moving even at a dead stop. The music is not the message.

So in performance there is only what there was in rehearsal - your body, your partners and your audience. The dancers are delivering their bodies, their hearts with every step, their intention and their thrust, all the energy they have.

Accepting, receiving that inspiration is what makes the light shine on C. Not for her the words in the back of her head left over from rehearsal: "right left right back back back". Instead she has learned those movements like an actor learns their lines, ready now to say them in a heightened reality - to live them newly here and now.

Actors listen for their cue for technical reasons - but they listen to the words for emotional ones. He interrupts, I am cut off but I receive the message - desperation? warning? anger? and I let that fuel me - move inside me - as I say my next line.

And so with C. as she moves around the floor - she is looking for her cues - taking them in and letting them change everything in that moment except for the steps.

Back in my apartment I turn from the dancers and notice the color of the sky is pearlescent blue and the sun is about to set. I lean back and take it in - a gorgeous light show.  The energy spurs an impulse to write about the dancers. To be generous by receiving the beauty and to feel it tell me how to move.