Awakening through the power of dance

After listening to our guests today, we could agree that everyone is a dancer!

Even though you never even danced at a party? You might think.

That is something you might want to explore!

In our everyday lives, we move. When we move, we can do it with ease and flow, or we can do it rigidly!

We can walk in rigidity, or we can glow and fly instead of walking! 

The same with small movements: we can move our hands easily or be a little clumsy!

I guess you prefer moving with ease…

Our guests, Rudi Cole and Julia Robert manage to focus on easiness when they dance or teach others how to dance professionally. Julia Robert and Rudi Cole, aka. HUMANHOOD, are the founders and Artistic Directors of Humanhood Dance Company, ‘A company worth travelling light years to see’ – UKDanceHub. 

You might think that sometimes, a professional dancer can feel hard times and hard work when injured, for example!

Well, that is different for our guests.

How do they do that? You might wonder. How do you keep flow of movement, even when in pain?

Their answer is to take action by seeing a learning opportunity in every situation, even through the pain!

For them, dance starts with energy. With a background in physics, both of our guests started dancing and paying attention to the physical and technical steps of the dance. 

Later on, with their travels, they dived into spirituality and started to connect oriental practices and dancing with the breath.

The first thing they teach in their workshops is that when you connect with the space within your body, you become more stable. More attuned. 

Rhythm and pause are the next things they try in their workshops with all kinds of people, from old people to professional dancers.

They refer to the rhythm as tribal! And it might be true; much tribal music has some rhythm! And rhythm changes.

Rudi Cole and Julia Robert are artists, dancers, and shamans based in the US, with projects all around Europe, especially in Barcelona. You can learn more about their projects at https://aerowaves.org/artist/humanhood-julia-robert-and-rudi-cole/.

One of them, being in the London Olympic game ceremony, must have been a great energetic experience!

Going back to the idea that dancing creates energy brings me back to all the times I felt the energy of the people I saw dancing in shows, for example.

Sometimes I felt strength, lightness, or ease in the dancers’ movements. Or just a burst of energy from watching them together!

Cole and Julia focus more on the energy surrounding the body and the movements, not so much on the energy that the movement evokes.

And if we translate that to the idea that moving in our everyday lives is also a creation of energy, it makes me want to try it with my hands!

There is where intention and movement come in.

The intention has to go with the physical movement and this feeling of the space to create meaningful movement.

Also, it is fascinating how dancers use choreographies. The peripheral view in dancing is something that is used all the time in dancing, and it can be an ability to develop empathy and connection with other human beings.

It makes you adapt to the other’s body and movement and be able to coordinate. I’m thinking about all the areas where this can be useful!

Driving, for example. Or even in workplaces!

Kristina mentions in the interview that we lost a lot of traditions where dancing was involved in some way in our everyday life. It was part of many cultural practices that have been lost or diminished in importance.

At this point, I wonder: is dancing or movement something that has to be perfected or somewhat natural? Julia and Cole’s opinion is that your own individual expression of movement is a dance.

So how can dancing help us in our everyday lives?

We can use dancing as a little meditation to embody our deepest feelings and desires!

They insist on focusing on the space that surrounds the matter of your body, not the matter itself.

Does it feel supportive?

Presence, calmness, and becoming more intuitive are some of the emotional and spiritual benefits of dancing. Not to mention the benefits for physical health that movement has: as a dancer, you are moving life through you.

One exercise I loved from the interview was the one to focus on connecting to the earth’s energy and feeling how it supports the air!

The universe will give you as much as you can channel, which makes me wonder: can we all channel dancing?

We can and our guests, too, is all about getting people in a state of flow. 

They mention that when they work with professional dancers, sometimes you need to do a lot of undoing and feel more of the cosmos because there are a lot of previous habits that don’t allow them to create!

They usually end their workshops with rhythm and bouncing, which is very important to let go and end with a very fluid quality.

Also, the celebration comes a long way. Celebrate what we want; celebrate that what we want is already here!

The world is becoming a place where you are more allowed to express uniqueness. Through dance, we know and dive into what makes it unique.

Step into feeling great within our bodies because we can!

You can also participate in this state of flow by doing your dance! It doesn’t have to be technically good: a funky dance to get into the shower can be the way you introduce dancing and flow into your life or put a little flow and flavor into your day. Where your focus goes, your energy flows. Then listen, and open your body!

An expression of the happiness and joy of being on this planet! Connected with the gratitude of having a body.

Episode resources:

• Rudi Cole & Julia Robert | Instagram

• Rudi Cole & Julia Robert | Facebook

• Rudi Cole & Julia Robert | LinkedIn

• Rudi Cole & Julia Robert | Website