6 months after the Annual General Meeting and the workshop “Departure into the Uncertain” in Meißen, the professional association Meditation of Dance – Sacred Dance invited to a second open workshop in Bad Herrenalb, this time led by Friedel and Saskia.
The centre designed by Heidi – a richly colourful bouquet of different zinnias, “each blossom a dance” – visually expressed what the invitation in the flyer had formulated: Let us experience our connectedness in dance together this weekend. What connects us all, what we all find home in, something that allows us to build bridges to ourselves and others – the meditation of dance.
At the beginning, Friedel reflected on the term “being connected” and opened up the complex dimension of this basic theme of human life with her thoughts. The selection of dances and the accompanying texts coherently unfolded and illuminated essential aspects: I-Thou-We, Encounter, Friendship, Connecting, Letting Go.
A text by Hermann Hesse is quoted here as an example:
It is not our task to get closer to each other.
Our goal is not to merge into each other,
but to recognise each other
and to learn in each other to see
and to learn to honour
what he is:
the other’s counterpart and complement.
Choreographies such as Freundschaftstanz, Being together/Zweisamkeit, Zwiegespräch, Inanna, Neumond, Alles ist eins allowed the challenges of “being connected” to be experienced directly in a sensual way: In steps, gestures and spatial paths, it was a matter of reassuring oneself and of finding one’s way from the I to the Thou in the togetherness.
The Sunday morning attunement brought together the diversity of what had been danced and heard: After the Sonnentanz, méditation en croix, Verbindungstanz-Onthechtingsdans, Wege zu Dir-Wege zu mir and Zuversicht, we embraced each other in a tight circle around the centre and swayed together to the music of Nasihat (Kradagan).
The 23 participants, who travelled from the north to the south of Germany, from Switzerland, the French Jura and Latvia, felt richly blessed by Friedel’s and Saskia’s work. Depth and fullness were the characteristics of this wonderfully successful seminar, leaving much to reflect on and resonate with, inspiring and urging to share.
Uli (Ulrike Meister-Lucht)