What Ceremony is Teaching Me About Dance
- C. Redondo
- Dec 17, 2024
- 6 min read
A Little Background
In 2021, a few years after moving to Minneapolis, I felt an unwavering desire to share the harrowing stories of my past with my new friends. You see, the person I am today - the way I behave, the things I value, the choices I make - is a complete 180 from who I once was.
For the first time in my life, I had found real, authentic friendships, and I wanted to be seen in my totality. I needed them to understand the storms I had weathered to become the person they now called a friend.
So I turned to the thing I always turn to when I don’t know what else to do: I danced. Have you ever seen those videos where someone holds up a series of poster boards with words on them, pulling each one away as you read along? I did a version of that!
The pages told my vulnerable stories - about my childhood, that thing that happened to me when I was 12, that other thing when I was 21, the violently abusive relationship I was in for 5 years, and how I’ve moved through it all. I pulled back the pages as I danced around in my living room to my favorite songs, and shared a new story live on social media every day for 7 days.
My Discovery
I cannot explain to you the lightness and liberation I felt afterwards. I stood a little taller, I took more risks. It was as if I had shined a light on everything that once brought me shame which broke me free from the emotional burden I’d been carrying my whole life.
Two years later, in 2023, I felt the urge to take it further, bigger and bolder. I wanted to do it live, to share space with people in real time and tell my stories on a larger stage. So, with the support of my friends, I put on a one-woman show called Story JAM. Once again, the experience was profoundly empowering.
This time, I wanted to understand what was actually happening to me. Why was this so powerful? As I began to research, I realized these moments weren’t just about dancing and storytelling, they were an act of ceremony. Ceremony! How cool is that?
I’ve spent this past year immersing myself in the study and practice of ceremony to learn all I can. The following is an introduction to ceremony, and farther down, what ceremony has been teaching me about dance (I will list resources below).
What Is Ceremony?
The purpose of ceremony is to acknowledge the unseen. To take all the invisible change that’s happening in our lives and to pause and say - this is happening, or has happened, and we need to honor it. And for someone to witness you (living people, spirit, ancestors, nature) and say - this is happening, or has happened, and we see you.
Most of the change we experience goes unnoticed. The event that causes the change - a death, a graduation, a change of season - might be visible, but the internal journey that follows is often hidden. And because being with our emotions, as well as allowing ourselves to experience uncertainty, is taboo in our society, this transformation not only remains unseen by others but also goes unacknowledged within ourselves. Without the encouragement to slow down and honor our journeys as they unfold, we can become disconnected from the profound shifts happening around us and inside us.
Ceremony is our human nature. It’s been said that any child, upon experiencing their first loss, will instinctively create a ceremony of their own. Is that true for you? Think about losing a pet, moving away, or saying goodbye to something or someone you loved. Maybe it was as small as sleeping with your pet’s collar, framing a photo, or watching your friend’s favorite movie in their honor.
Making meaning and enacting that meaning is how we process change, decide what matters, and remind ourselves that our experiences are worthy of acknowledgement and care.
Components of Ceremony
(Keeping this as brief as possible here, SO much more to say!)
In its full expression, a ceremony is enacted around a specific intention, and consists of a beginning, middle and end. There may be rituals and symbols woven throughout. It may be as short as a few minutes or as long as many days.
Although it transcends beliefs and denominations, ceremony at its core is an invitation to commune with the transpersonal and unseen forces. The beginning serves as a severance from ordinary life - a moment to acknowledge that we are stepping across a threshold of time and space to honor the reason for gathering. Then the middle, which goes by many names, is the liminal space where things take place. And the end is for us to come back through the threshold, back to ordinary life, where we can then spend our time integrating what transpired.
Obstacles and Antidotes
In many ceremonies or “quests” that unfold over longer periods of time - be it an hour, a day, or several days - part of the medicine lies in encountering obstacles along the journey. These can be practical, like a group of geese wandering through your wedding procession, or they can be emotional or spiritual in nature.
The five most common obstacles you will face in ceremony are distraction, expectation, the logical mind, trying, and doubt. Below I’ll explain what we can do when we meet them.
Distraction
When your attention isn’t being held by some external thing, you may experience wandering or racing thoughts, boredom, or diversion from the purpose.
You can negate this with pure concentration - on a flower, a mantra, a song, bodily awareness, anything. By anchoring yourself to a single point of focus, you create space for presence and clarity to emerge.
Expectation
In our society, ceremony is often romanticized as an event that will go exactly as planned, be profoundly moving and instantly life-changing. That can sometimes be the case, but not often. We can get frustrated by this.
Practice total acceptance for things as they are - slow, mundane, or chaotic and imperfect - whatever is happening is all a gift. We don’t have to force ourselves to see the gift then and there, that’s what integration is for. Ceremony is for being present with what is.
The Logical Mind
The logical mind tries to make sense of everything - it wants to analyze, explain, and control. This can block the flow of intuition and feeling, which can prevent your experience from reaching you on a deeper level.
We can thank the logical mind and give it permission to rest, and instead invoke the “spirit mind” or awareness without thought, soft tracking and radical presence.
Trying
Of course we don’t set out to enact ceremony for no reason! So when things feel uneventful or frustrating, we might start trying really hard to make something happen.
Come back to your intention. Your intention is what’s at the center of your trying. Why are you here? And how can you be guided by your intention without needing there to be a specific outcome?
Doubt
You will most likely be met by the stories and the mind chatter that say “I can’t do this,” or “I’m ready to be done,” whether what is happening is rigorous, intense, or boring.
These are profound moments to be curious about how or whether you will persevere anyway. What voice will show up, how will your story change, who will you become in these moments?
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Can We Talk About Dance, Quickly?
Integrating this understanding into my life over the past several months, I’ve come to realize that elements of ceremony can be woven into almost any practice or activity we engage in.
A yoga class. A webinar. A walk through nature. Watching a movie.
This awareness reminds us that every experience has the potential to change us.
As someone who loves dancing, I feel especially grateful for these tools as it pertains to my dance practice:
1. Instead of just pressing play and moving my body, I set an intention before I begin.
2. I have an opening ritual.
3. During the practice I meet every single one of the 5 obstacles and I relax myself into the process, knowing that a divine communion is taking place that I may not understand in the moment. (You may want to review them again and imagine how they show up on the dance floor!)
4. I have a closing ritual.
5. I allow time for integration and trust that, just like in my one-woman show before I fully understood what I was creating, something powerful is unfolding.
By bringing ceremony into dance, we give ourselves the permission (and may even begin to look forward to) confronting our doubts, our frustrations, and the many other obstacles that arise, as a way to embrace their lessons and continue evolving.
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Check out my current offerings for ways you can engage with this practice!
Resources:
Endless gratitude for Katie Asmus and Haaweatea Holly Bryson for changing my life with this training -
