I love going to the theatre.
In particular, I love going to the theatre to watch dance.
Last night, I went to watch a preview of a dance film, adapted from a stage production, which was choreographed by one of my all time favourite choreographers (anyone that knows me will know who this is)
There was a lot to love about the work but I left the screening feeling decidedly flat.
It wasn’t the choreography - although there were moments where I felt any reference to balletic movement didn’t quite ‘fit’ with the narrative of the work.
It wasn’t the unbelievable skill of the dancers - on the contrary, the principal dancers were incredible.
It wasn’t even the interference I had with some of the production decisions and the seemingly overladen thematic root of the piece.
What was missing for me was the visceral experience I usually get from watching live dance performance in a theatre.
It’s hard to describe but it’s almost like I physically absorb live dance. I ‘feel it’ in my body - from the hairs on the backs of my arms, to my heart beat and the skin on my face. It moves me. Often to tears.
But whilst I could appreciate so much about this dance film, I just didn’t ‘feel it’ in the same way.
The experience of viewing dance through a screen last night has led me to ponder more generally about how much of our visceral life experience we miss when we are absorbed in looking at a screen (like I am now) or just caught up in our perpetually busy minds , living life in our heads.
We need the visceral to feel alive - to know we are here, on this planet, now.
And we can harness the visceral to pay attention to the now.
To give us a break from our over-analytical, problem finding, self-critical monkey mind.
And so I am reminded, yet again, of the importance of Mindfulness practice in my daily life and in making time for it.
Making time to notice the physical experience of life happening now.
‘Feeling it’
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