Practice Time

Hello Life-Dance Lovers,

It has been almost two months since I last connected with my blog...and so much have happened! It was travel time, inwardly and outwardly, as it always is...

At first, I made the journey from Orissa, on the east coast of India, where I lived and danced all winter, to Delhi, the lively capital. I love Delhi. I always have so much fun finding the most awesome cultural events of music, dance, and art. There was a festival of sacred art around the time I was there, and I saw incredible performances of ecstatic Sufi music and dance from Egypt (!) and a concert that wove together all of south India classical music traditions. What a journey! I also met some great people while I was there, and of course, shopped until I dropped.  Then I traveled across the planet back to the USA. Cain and I met in AZ where we basically said hello and goodbye to family and friends and drove off in a U-haul with all of our staff westward to Santa Cruz, CA.

 I've been landing, grounding, re-orienting, and feeling it out here ever since. We have a lovely nest in the form of a rustic cabin in the woods, a quiet spot in the Santa Cruz hills. The air is moist and we are surrounded by Oak, Madrone, California Bay, Pine, Redwoods, Manzanitas, lush ferns, and wild herbs, (a bit of poison oak...), and so many other plant-friends. We also have lots of deer running around, and I think some wild dog and cat-like creatures. Every time we leave and return, we travel through a winding narrow corridor of lush greenery, and the gentle rumble of flowing water as background music, so nourishing!

 Santa Cruz town is a funky place. One of the great things for me is the lively world-culture scene. There is so much music and dance from around the world, creative expression exploding in the streets, and in the concert halls, I'm really digging it here art-wise. It feels like arriving at the oasis after a long journey in the desert. I love Prescott - the crystal-clear sky, sparkly air, and small community of friends we made while living there. However, cowboy poetry and square dancing doesn't nourish me the same way as being able to watch, and dance to, world-class flamenco, Moroccan Music, Afro-Brazilian-Reggae, Middle-eastern band, and much more, all in the same week!

Travel didn't stop yet though...We have been to Oregon, going back to Arizona, and then the grand journey to Alaska. I have a dear community of Dance-Yoga-Qi friends in Anchorage Alaska, that Cain and I will return to this May. We will be teaching Odissi dance, Yoga, Qi Gong, and related knowledge. This upcoming Alaska journey has been a great incentive to dive deeply and wholly into practice. I'm fully immersed these days in Odissi dance & music, Yoga, and Qi-gong practice, and feeling the deepening of my experience moment by moment. Realizations, openings, and clarity bubbling from within and raining from above. What a gift! I'm writing articles, preparing performances, classes, intensive dance seminar - an elaborate program of events to unfold in Alaska. In this light - I feel moved to shift this blog greatly toward movement-practice related info, rather then my own personal life stories.

And so to begin with, below is some information about the preliminary steps a dancer takes preparing herself to dance.

Preparing to Dance Odissi  
 
 Sloka – Prayer 
 
Before we start dancing we initiate our practice reciting a sloka. Slokas are short
verses from the Vedas – the ancient scriptures. They usually attributed to specific
Gods or Goddesses and serve as an invocation prayer to attain steady and peaceful
state of being. Below are the two most common dance slokas from the Abhinaya
Darpana by Nandikeshvara, one of the ancient classical dance texts. 
 

Namaskriya Sloka:
Nama  -Salutation, 
Kriya  -Action
Sloka – spiritual poetry
 
 Lord Shiva is praised as the embodiment of the 4 types of abhinaya (Body & hand
movement, ornaments and costume, Song, Mood/emotional expression) in this
following sloka.
 
Angikam Bhuvanam Yasya (All our body parts are yours)
Vachikam Sarva Bhagmayam (Our words are your world)
Aharyam Chandra Taradi (The Sun and Moon are your ornaments)
Tum Namaa Satvikam Shivam (I salute you Shiva, the embodiment of truth, with my
body-mind-spirit) 
 
“We bow to Him the benevolent One
whose limbs are the world, 
whose song and poetry are the essence of all language,
whose costume is the moon and the stars..."
 
Guru Brhama (Birth, You are my teacher)
Guru Vishnu (Life, You are my teacher)
Guru Deva Maheshvara (Death, You are my teacher)
Guru Sakshat Param Bramha (Emptiness, You are certainly my teacher)
Tasmay shri Guruveh Namaha (To such respected teacher I offer my devotion)
 
 
Bumi Paranam - Salutation to the earth:
 
Odissi dancer offers Bumi Paranam - A Dance-Prayer sequence to initiate and to
conclude every dance session. Bumi is the earth Goddess. We salute the earth
before practice, asking permission to stump upon her and generate our creation, and
we thank her at the end of our practice, for allowing us to do so. 
 
Practice Time:
 
Odissi dance takes shape as a gradual progression: addressing all the elements of
the dance and then layering them together into a complete and intricate whole. We
begin every practice session with gentle exercises; joint opening sequences and light
stretches, followed by stronger exercises that strengthen the legs, open the hips, flex
the spine, and develop stamina and rhythm. We proceed with the distinct dance
postures in various dance steps, spins, walks and jumps, climaxing in practice of
choreography. A session usually concludes with unwinding and cooling down
stretches, as well as refining our mudra practice, developing eye, head, and neck
movements, emotional expressions, and other facets and elements of odissi. 
Before we begin moving  - The dancer always centers and grounds:
connecting with her breath, with the earth through the sole of her feet, with heaven
through the top of her head, and with space within and around. The dancer is seen
as the creator of the universe, creating her own universe with her dance and letting
creation happen through her while dancing.  As we prepare ourselves to dance, it is
important to view ourselves as the center axis between heaven and earth, and let all
manifestation revolve around us. The most profound role of the dancer is her ability to
transform her own reality and touch her audience deeply, offering the opportunity to
transcend ʻordinaryʼ life moments into ʻextra-ordinaryʼ spiritual ones.