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General TPL Talks and Programs

Free Gaga Dance Workshop at Parkdale Library (June 16, 2012)

Hearth and Circus Dancer, Catherine Raine 2008

Intrigued by the opportunity to learn about Gaga dance, I arrived at Parkdale Library just before two o’clock. Three volunteers in Luminato festival T-shirts guarded the staircase leading to the program room below and checked off names from a list of 60 registered participants.

This was a very special program, for members of the renowned Batsheva Dance Company were coming all the way from Israel to share the Gaga technique with Toronto.

After my name was ticked and my wrist stamped, I went downstairs to a room in which grooved wooden dividers had been pushed back to create the largest possible amount of space. From the maps and educational posters on the wall, I guessed that the space was usually devoted to more stationary pursuits than dance, such as homework clubs and youth council meetings.

Due to some problems with traffic, the Gaga dancers were about ten minutes late. This gave me plenty of time to observe my fellow participants. Eagerly gathered for guided movement, most of us lined the edges of the room, but four movers put themselves out on the floor. One made a starfish shape, sprawling comfortably in lavender socks, her form not confined by the large white square tiles of the floor. Another person executed a series of energetic stretches while a nearby lady rolled from side to side on her back. A middle-aged man in shorts walked slowly across the room in a straight line, rising up on his toes at regular intervals.

Circle, Catherine Raine 2009

I appreciated the diversity of age, gender, ethnicity, and body sizes in the group. As a tall and robust 43-year-old woman, I was initially worried that I’d be an elephant among dancing gazelles. I had even considered bailing out earlier in the day, but I am so glad I didn’t!

Column Dancer, Catherine Raine 2009

Among the gathering, I noticed a lot of Lululemon clothing and yoga-straight backs, feather earrings, gym bags and souvenir T-shirts from marathon events. Also present were jeans and ballet slippers, water bottles and bike helmets, rainbow socks and pedicured toes.

If dancers find themselves in a room with nothing to do for ten minutes, they usually default to stretching. At the Gaga Dance Workshop, the assembled movers twirled their ankles, performed unbidden leg-lifts, and engaged in hip and shoulder stretches. Some made more expansive movements, swinging their arms and legs like elegant pendulums. Unsure what the next hour might bring, many prepared all parts of their bodies for possible engagement. Accepting their wisdom, I sat on the floor and stretched forward, wishing I could touch my forehead to my knees like the guy next to me.

When Rachael Osborne, our dance facilitator arrived at 2:10 p.m., she asked us if this was the class for dancers or non-dancers. Somebody assured her it was for the latter, and she laughed and said, “But I see a lot of dancers here!”

I liked how Rachael launched right into the program without preliminary talk. She invited us to spread throughout the room and to contemplate the way that gravity was affecting our bodies. She encouraged us to increase our awareness of how our bodies exist in space, the distance between our arms, the temperature of the air on our skin, how our clothes feel where they touch us, the way our bones stack upon each other, and the feeling of our inner and outer flesh.

“Think about the inside our your bodies. We often don’t know what’s going on in there. Imagine channels and highways flowing throughout you, sending important information. Picture the energy, heat, and juices flowing through these channels. Keep these highways open.” Later, she exhorted, “Keep the box of your chest open so that it’s no longer a separate rib cage box disconnected from the surrounding flesh.”

As a group, we experimented with expressing the sensation of our flesh and bones floating in water and then in the thicker liquid atmosphere of honey. “Don’t be a victim of gravity. It ages us.” Then we followed Rachael’s example as she demonstrated port de bras and asked us to imagine our entire outstretched wingspan as being one long rope, not two separate right/left binary limbs.

“Your spine, let it flow like seaweed. We also call it the ‘snake of the spine’ in Gaga.” Rachael reminded us that our neck is an extension of our spine and that our head is also composed of flesh and goo. (My inner Midwestern Puritan grew squeamish at the juicy way she kept repeating the word flesh).

Fiery Merman of the Falls, Catherine Raine 2011

As the hour flew by, we pulled the rope of our arms across the spine, articulated our shoulders and arms with palms up and palms down, challenged our hips with figure eights, walked with a groove, and cultivated a quake in our pelvises that translated into full body quakes. For our final movement exercise, the quakes that begin in the core quickly began to shake legs, torsos, shoulders, arms, hands, and heads.

Sixty people grooving and quaking around the room was an unforgettable sight, and I’m so grateful I got to be part of it. Thank you Rachael, Parkdale Library, and Luminato for this revelatory experience!

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