Dancing as one body

One of the things that I learned when I went to Bulgaria to dance with Anna Shtarbonova and tour sacred sites, is that it was considered very important by the Bulgarians to dance as one body--as one being. I had never heard this said before in any workshops I have taken over the years and it struck me as very profound in its implications. Wow! you mean I'm not just dancing by myself with others doing the same thing, but I am actually am no longer an individual but an integral part of a larger whole? A dancer who had grown up in Bosnia shared that it was considered bad manners in her village to dance in front of another person or behind another person. Thus, it was also important to be aware of one's relationship to the dancers on either side as one danced. My experience is that most of us are only aware of ourselves as we dance and not of the whole group as a dancing body and how our movements might be related to person next to us and the dance as whole.

Another set of concepts that is relevant here that I have learned in various workshops over the years, is that the three most important persons in a line is the leader, the dancer next to him or her and the last person in the line. The second person in line is the bridge and when the leader wishes to improvise, will maintain the basic structure of the dance and thus becomes the leader for a while. The last person in the line helps maintain the formation of the line and the pattern that the leader is tracing on the ground with his or her feet. By hugging the center of the circle (and the centerpiece), the last person in line can prevent the leader from tracing patterns and unable to do anything but circle around the last person in line and the centerpiece. Of course, all the dancers have a responsibility to be aware of the leader and help create the patterns he or she is initiating. A common mistake that is made by inexperienced dancers is that when the line of dancers changes directions, they will slow down and wait for their turn to change direction instead of dancing out to the point where the dancing line turns and then changing direction.