Dancing Through Life: Somatic Movement Practices at Different Life Stages

Dancing Through the Decades

One way to see “dancing through life” is to look at how dance or other movement practices have been a presence over the course of our life. What is our “story of movement”? What movement methods were present in our lives when we were small kids, teenagers, young adults, in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and so on? How did they impact what we were doing or experiencing at that time? Did our personalities or capacities develop in certain ways because of these movement practices? Have we stopped some of these practices and why? How and when did dance enter into our lives? What doors has it opened? Questions like these clarify the importance of movement methods throughout our lives. They help us understand and develop compassion for the changing needs and capacities of the body.

Developing compassion for the body is an integral part of somatic practices. We tap into what the body is able to do and what its current sensations are like. This attention to the body in its present state, the “now body,” is what keeps our connection to a somatic practice alive and vital—every day, the sensations in the body and its needs and wants might be different, which makes us pay attention and stay in constant dialogue with it. “A big piece of dancing through life is making the best of what we’ve got at the time. I see a lot of people who have stopped dancing for many different reasons—maybe an injury. We all have injuries. But even if I’m tapping my finger to music, there is a lot going on neurologically just to be able to do that. Over the years, balance is more of a challenge, remembering routines is more of a challenge. We have to work with our limitations,” noted Kenny Daley, 72, a former ballroom dancer and dance teacher, martial artist, and instructor of somatic techniques, in an interview with the author.

One benefit of somatic methods is that they can be practiced at different stages in our lives. They help us stay fit, agile, aware of bodily sensations, and connected to the body when we are healthy. They also help when we are experiencing injuries or are going through emotionally or mentally difficult periods. A free dance practice, such as 5Rhythms, where participants move without any pre-given choreography, can be an excellent way to understand and process emotions through movement. Daley noted, “If there is something going on emotionally, it is going to come out. I can’t lie to my body. For example, I can recognize anger and respect it by bringing it out on the dance floor. Okay, let’s do an anger dance. After maybe 10 minutes it feels different.” Dancing can help us “get through” the turbulences of our lives.

Somatic practices are gentler than many fitness methods and encourage the participants to listen to their needs and pay attention to their sensations, which makes them beneficial for developing a connection to the body at all ages. They are helpful as we age and can physically no longer perform certain movements or execute them at certain speeds. For example, someone who used to be active as a dancer might not be physically capable of following the same routines and expectations of the technique due to an injury or changes of the advanced age. This person might stop dancing. Somatic methods, with their gentler approach and a larger amount of liberty for adaptations and body listening, allow this person to continue dancing and enjoying the emotional, physical, and cognitive benefits that dancing brings.

One method that develops the cognitive system and keeps the body active as we age is Ageless Grace, developed by Denise Medved (for more, see https://agelessgrace.com/). This seated practice is suitable for children all the way to people in the advanced ages. There are 21 tools in this practice, and one of them is Team Fit. Participants act as if they are playing a sport, but in a seated position and relying on their imagination. This practice is not about dancing per se but is done to music and is expressive and creative. “We build new neuropathways through music, movement, and acting as if we are children and acting with reckless abandon. Who cares? There are two ways of looking at it—dance like no one is watching or dance like everyone is watching,” Daley, instructor of Ageless Grace, noted.

While somatic practices are becoming more popular among adults and people in their advanced ages, they are yet to find a stronger presence in the wellness education of children, teenagers, and young adults. The physical education of children and teenagers tends to focus on physical skills, games, and sports activities. Somatic, holistic, and mindful practices ask for a different kind of attention, an inward look, and the ability to connect to the sensations of the body. These capacities also take time to develop. Initiatives such as yoga and mindfulness for children are bringing more awareness of conscious movement and mindful bodily connection among younger populations. Susan Bauer, with her Embodied Teen (2018) and lectures and workshops, is doing pioneering work in this realm (for more, see https://susanbauer.com/).

One way to “dance through the decades” of our lives is to do it to the accompaniment of music that comes from different decades. Yvonne Adrian-Puckett and Roger Puckett, in their 80s, are a prime example of how to “dance through life”—they have kept dancing and teaching dance for many decades. They have also created the programs of “Young at Heart,” dedicated to more advanced movers, and “Dancing the Decades” (for more, see https://www.yvonneandrogerdance.com/). In these classes, particularly in “Dancing the Decades,” they include music that comes from different decades. The participants, many of whom have lived through these decades, benefit from this journey: the music brings back memories and makes the physical experience even more impactful because of the emotional connection.

Dance and the Everyday

The phrase “dancing through life” could refer to having a committed movement practice—taking time to dance and move on a regular basis. We dance through life if we dance often. “There is a Zen koan that says that the water must be carried and the wood must be cut. We have our obligations of daily living. We have to prepare food, we have relationships, we have jobs. However, we have to make time to dance. It’s almost like an award after we have accomplished something. It’s about balancing our time allocation. We have to balance play with obligation,” Daley said.

“Dancing through life” can mean finding dance-like movements in our everyday activities or accompanying everyday activities with dance movements. For example, I can do a dance movement when making the bed in the morning, cleaning the apartment, sweeping the floor, or cooking dinner. Somatic movement educator and Nia teacher trainer Holly Nastasi noted in an interview with the author that she finds Nia dance movements in her everyday life: “I’m in constant movement. Standing by the dishwasher, watering my plants, hanging up my towels, vacuuming the floor. I’m sensing myself. I notice, ‘Oh that movement felt just like ‘reach across’’ or a punch across. I went to grab my glass and I brought it back—that felt good, that was a dance through life moment” (for more, see https://www.hollynastasi.com/). If we pay attention, many of our daily movements could remind us of the movements we practice in dance. “Put some music on and whatever you do, you start to automatically dance with it. It makes the daily activity much more fun, especially if you don’t like that daily activity,” Yvonne Adrian-Puckett noted.

Kenny Daley pointed out that for him, dancing through life means checking whether he is in flow in his everyday life. “I have to check myself to see if I’m doing something rigidly—that might have to do with my mood. Maybe I don’t want to do whatever I’m doing. Then I have to try to change that. It is better to bend and go with the flow like a young tree than to be rigid like an old oak. If I’m rigid there’s a great chance that I might break and fall over. I need to find a way to be flowing. That’s also a principle in martial arts—if somebody attacks me with a straight arm and I turn away then I’m not there anymore. This becomes a dance.” He uses his imagination when he moves and teaches movement: “When I extend my arm, I imagine that there is a force field coming out of my fingers that goes four feet out. It changes the expression of how I move. It’s an awareness. I come back to flow. If I’m not flowing then I’m being too rigid.”

Dancing through life means including more moments to dance in our everyday life. We do not necessarily need to do a full dance or movement class on a daily basis, but we can break up an activity by doing a small amount of movement—dancing, stretching, or a conditioning exercise. These dance or movement breaks can be self-guided or rely on applications or YouTube videos for inspiration and instruction. It is easier to put dance and movement pauses into action when one has control over the working and living space. However, as Daley suggested, we can look for surprising moments to dance in unusual settings: for example, when we hear a song that we like in a supermarket, we could groove a bit to it—maybe other people might find it inspiring as well. Our lives become fuller of small moments of creative movement, which have an effect on our daily life, mood, and vitality long term.

A Metaphor and a Motto

“Dancing through life” is a metaphor, an image, and a mindset. How we see “dance” symbolically depends on what we associate the word “dance” with—for example, partner dancing, solo dance, entertainment, self-expression, technique, and effort. To me, “dancing through life” evokes flow, the primacy of movement, movement as a constant in life, lightheartedness, playfulness, and not taking it all so very seriously. I associate this phrase with joy, elegance, and grace, which encourages me to meet life’s gifts and challenges with an attitude of elegance. To dance through life to me means experiencing flow, being creative and resourceful, moving in new and different ways, and being able to improvise and adapt to changing life circumstances.

Kaia Kiik, visual artist and participant in my Nia dance classes, noted in an interview with the author that to her, “dancing through life” means moving to different rhythms of life, the same way that a dancer would move to different rhythms and melodies in music. “There are different periods in life. Studying at a university has its own rhythm, preparing for exams has a different kind of rhythm. Having a stable job has its rhythm. Getting kids has its own rhythm—it’s a marathon but with the intense tempo of a sprint. When you dance through life, you adapt to the different tempos of these different periods of life but you keep the lightness. You don’t give up and become morose and complacent. Dancing through life means being an active participant in life.”

Jane Kornbluh, a participant in my Nia dance classes, dancer, and practitioner of several somatic movement practices, pointed out, “When I hear the phrase ‘dancing through life,’ I imagine someone who has an ongoing inner impulse to skip or glide or leap rather than merely locomote, someone who moves through space and time while infusing anatomical functions and mundane actions with a spirit of musicality and freedom, someone who knows how to gracefully side-step the things that routinely hinder most of us.”

“Dancing through life” can serve as a metaphor for how we move through life in relationships with other people. Partner dancing in particular offers insights into how to move with another person. We can see all dialogues and interactions as unique relationships that have their own energy and their own dance. During his salsa teacher certification training, Kenny Daley had to learn the steps of the partner as well: “I have to understand that this is a relationship. We have to understand the partner’s perspective. I can feel a lot about the energy of my partner just from what we call the ‘embrace’ in tango or ‘closed stance’ in ballroom dancing. I can feel if there is any tension. When we are in the flow, things seem to evolve spontaneously. It is hard to remain angry at your significant other who left the cap off the toothpaste if you are dancing together. You start afresh.” Being a professional dancer taught Daley to meet the partner where he/she was at. “I once had a couple in class and the leader couldn’t count the music. I just took that for granted. Eventually he started to feel the beat. In relationships, I might see things in one way but I have to open my mind to other perspectives.” He added, “In partner dance, it is very important to ask the person if they’d like to dance. You don’t just grab a hand and go. You’re recognizing another human being. And if things don’t work out, there’s also that respect. There’s no room for ego on the dance floor.”

To dance better through life, Daley recommends playing music, honoring the body, taking time to dance, and finding a way to connect to whatever “source” energy means to the individual. This source energy or universal energy could be accessed through breath, movement, or sedentary meditation. “Connecting to source puts me in flow. And flow is how life is meant to be. If a body of water is stagnant, there is no life there. There has to be an inflow and outflow for life to circulate. Connecting to source is an important part of each culture—people used to dance in groups at different times; there were different dances for different ceremonies.” “Dancing through life” as a motto reminds us to take time to have fun—whether that be dancing or playing a game or swimming—and to express ourselves through movement. “It’s not about work all the time. You have to be able to change gears,” Daley emphasized.

Conclusion

It is worthwhile to contemplate whether and how our approach to life and movement would change if we adapted the motto of “dance through life” or sensed ourselves as “dancing through life.” The uniqueness of “dancing” through life can become even more apparent if we try to use other verbs in this construction—such as “run through life,” “walk through life,” or “box through life.” We see immediately that the verb in the phrase impacts the image for the type of movement. “Running through life” evokes the image of moving through life at a high speed, without noticing much of what is happening at each moment.

To me, “dancing through life” is a commitment: I intend to keep dancing as long and as persistently as I can in my life. Somatic dancing has helped me through foot and spine injuries, grief, heartache, burnout, and everyday stress and uncertainties. When I think about myself as dancing through life, my posture changes and my gait too. As a dancer through life, I am aware of my body on a daily basis—the same way a dancer is aware of his/her body and movements.

Dancing through life puts us in touch with ease, resourcefulness, and creativity. For example, free dancing or dance improvisation practiced in Nia dance classes and many somatic dance methods have taught me about improvisation. I have learned to start to move even if I do not “know” or “have” the moves. As a freelancer, I need to be resourceful, flexible, and creative: I need to be able to withstand uncertainty, craft my own schedule, and create my own structure for each day. Practicing free dancing, where I give myself my own impulses to move and do not have other people’s steps to follow, has taught me how to self-direct my work and keep myself motivated.

Somatic dancing invites us to move in ways where the full self feels engaged—the body, emotions, the imagination, the mental realm, and the soul. “Dancing through life” somatically would mean to develop the same type of fully engaged, aware, and soulful way of moving and being in daily life. This type of aware movement does not need to apply for all of our movements and last for the entire duration of the day—we need to focus on and attend to other preoccupations and responsibilities as well. As long as we spend some time with this type of aware and soulful movement—depending on our own movement preferences, schedules, and other obligations—we feel somatically connected to our bodies. People who are in physically constrained situations that involve intense focus for long periods of time, such as driving a car, flying an airplane, or engaging in surgery, could benefit from somatic movement as an accompaniment in their lives before or after the workday or during pauses or days off. When we dance somatically, we can be ourselves, authentic, dancing and moving in our own unique ways, and recognizing the unique expression of other movers. Somatic dancing has an aesthetic dimension as well—it makes me feel beautiful as I move, and it makes me notice beauty in the movements of others and in my surroundings in general. “Dancing through life” means to connect to your body, be a part of a community, and feel happier, more lighthearted, and more content.

After writing this article, I realize that the next time I feel mopey, sad, down, or am traversing difficulties, I can remind myself to keep the attitude of a dancer who knows how to dance to these rhythms too. The dancer trusts that the right moves will emerge and that when this song stops, he/she will know how to dance to the next song too, in a different mood and tempo. We can’t be rigid, static, and resisting when we dance. These ways of thinking about movement and life can also help people who do not consider themselves as dancers or do not have a dance practice. This phrase, “dancing through life,” becomes a reservoir for a life of uplifted, lively energy, resilience, and resourcefulness that we all need.

Further Suggestions