Title: | dancing; in search for consciousness |
Posted On: | 2006-01-22 00:00:00 |
The passage of the form to the dance
In the movements coordinated of up to three or four minutes of duration the fundamental elements are condensed; it is to say to the different positions and movements from each one of the corporal segments. Therefore they can be repeated according to concrete guidelines. When one exceeds that time the body flows totally leaving the conscience released. There the free movement takes place that definitively becomes dance. The shamans arrives, then, to highest that corresponds with the creation.
The different cultures have called to this process "free movement" or "spontaneous movement", that is what gives therapeutic greatness to the ritual dance. Mostly not everyone can get there easily, it is meant to be a continual practice during years. The professional dancer is able to dance any thing and of course to leave freedom to his body so that he speaks without fixed pattern of no type. It happens the same with South American shamans whose movements, although free, enjoy harmony. Genetically this faculty also can be controlled as it happens in the African ethnic group.
Requirements of ritual dances
a) All require displacements. In some tie movements with magical aspects, the shaman does not move or if it does, the displacements are minimum. In that case it is a "bioenergetic" exercise but it is not dance.
b) requires a layout predetermined for the displacement; in the African dances the circular and linear form is adopted as much ahead and backwards like its derivatives Candonble and Ubanda.
c) Never movement exercises are executed in lying position since it is considered as a death sign.
d) the Dances have to be energetic with movements executed at great speed; although spaces rested can occur to prepare to the body for a new power unloading.
e) In all the dances the displacements take place according to established patterns; it is to say in some cases are unremovable patterns as it is the case of the Kata and in others the displacement is free, but the fundamental movements are delimited perfectly.
f) No ritual dance is inferior to three minutes of duration and can extend in time according to what the endurance of the shaman makes possible.