Verena Baldinger, Büdingen, Germany
Verena, you work as a management coach. How did you come to Meditation des Tanzes?
My sister Gitti is a belly dancer and I danced with her one weekend. In the evening, when our hips were glowing, she danced with us: “Can I come as I am?” by Nanni Kloke. Gitti was in Friedels first training group in Germany. With this dance, I was done for. But it took another eight years before I finally found the time to dance with Friedel because of my job, and only because someone told me that Friedel maybe wanted to stop. Deeply terrified of missing it, I signed up immediately, without any prior knowledge directly for the training.
What impulses has dancing given you?
Even if it sounds cliché, it saved me. My job as a coach and seminar leader in the business world was so scheduled that I too was only travelling staccato, in to-do lists. Meditation of dance has given me back the softness, the allowing, the flowing.
Has the meditation of dance changed anything in your life or influenced your professional activity?
In any case, a lot. The meditation of dance carried me when my daughter became seriously ill and when my marriage broke up. Despite such moments, I became much more balanced and trusting. It is impossible to write down as many thanks as I feel inside about this. Before, I did everything on my own, but in the meditation of dance I learned how well I can dance along without being able to do much, supported by the field of the other dancers and in the safety of a group. My work became easier and more spontaneous, I trusted myself and my impulses much more, according to the motto, if you don’t have everything under control, your hands are free for important things.
Is there a dance or choreography that is particularly important to you?
In 20 years of meditation with the Sufis, I got to know the dances of universal peace and was blown away by their deep symbolism. And also kind of bored with the banal steps. Mir fehlte dann doch Tanz dabei. All the MdT dances are more interesting dance-wise and many are really artistic, painting pictures and mandalas with the body.
If I have to choose a favourite dance- because there are so many beautiful ones- it’s “the path” by Saskia about the path and its curves, or all the dances by Friedel that celebrate that one moment of upliftment. So if I can only name one, I’ll go with Friedel’s Rose. The dance ends with the moment of rising and actually I want to stay on tiptoe forever. But I can’t do that physically, and besides, the dance is over..
So dancing teaches me so much about Earthiness, letting go and transience. “In the middle of life we are surrounded by death” says Wolfgang Schmidbauer and I only understood this sentence in the dance. And also how delicious life becomes through this realisation, which sounds so terrible at first.
You meet a lot of people. What is essential to you in this context that you would like to share with us, e.g. a vision, an idea, a picture, a song or a text?
What is important to me above all is the heart connection that we humans are to be able to. Sometimes I feel like a Trojan horse in business, no matter what the title of the seminar is, leadership, team, change, or whatever, it’s about reconnecting people to their heart, then they know themselves what they want to do and what is right.
I would like to share a poem by Hilde Domin here at the end that particularly touches me. Hilde Domin was a friend of my mother’s and, incidentally, the scare of my childhood. Today I adore her poems and also loves her very much.
For me, it’s “soaked to the core”. MdT involves all parts of this poem and centres me in the heart.
Wir werden eingetaucht
und mit den Wassern der Sintflut gewaschen
Wir werden durchnässt
bis auf die Herzhaut
Der Wunsch nach der Landschaft
diesseits der Tränengrenze
taugt nicht
der Wunsch den Blütenfrühling zu halten
der Wunsch verschont zu bleiben
taugt nicht
Es taugt die Bitte
dass bei Sonnenaufgang die Taube
den Zweig vom Ölbaum bringe
dass die Frucht so bunt wie die Blume sei
dass noch die Blätter der Rose am Boden
eine leuchtende Krone bilden
und dass wir aus der Flut
dass wir aus der Löwengrube und dem feurigen Ofen
immer versehrter und immer heiler
stets von neuem
zu uns selbst
entlassen werden.
Hilde Domin
Verena, thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us.