The Art of Movement:
Creativity and Expression through Dance 
by Zenya K. Horricks 

We come spinning out from nothingness, scattering stars...the stars form a circle, and in the center we dance. -  Rumi  

Anyone who has ever danced or watched others dance understands, at least intuitively, that dance is significant in human society. Every culture creates, maintains and expresses meaning through dance. It is the movement of the universe around and through us, as individuals and communities.

As a form of communication, dance has many functions: a medium of cultural identity, conveyance of social mores such as gender or class, preservation of stories and important events, and as a form of creative expression.   We are all dancers, "trained" or "creative" or "not". We dance who we are, we tell our stories and share others, always moving in the present moment.

Creative movement is the unfolding of innate personal expression, continually emerging, changing with every body, with time, place and environment. As part of Creation, we are always dancing, moving with the Cosmos in the infinite variations of our experienced lives. Martha Graham aptly states:  

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time this expression is unique. And if you block it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.  

Children express themselves through dance perfectly when they feel a rhythm. It's stunning how freely movement can be improvised. Being "creative" has a lot to do with allowing, something many adults find challenging.   As we become self- conscious, there is a tendency to self-edit, blocking the flow of creativity before it finds its expression. We are concerned with how we appear to others.  Dancing, an intrinsic part of who we are, becomes secondary to how we want to appear to be. As a result, we often hold our bodies in constrictive patterns that reflect our beliefs about ourselves. We are always "creative" in the sense that every moment we choose to be and do in a particular manner. However, the feeling of creative expression emerges when we move out of habitual or restrictive ways of being and moving.

Exploration of movement and music in an inspiring and safe environment is central to letting the dance within you materialize.   The role of dance instruction is to provide an environment that is grounded, technical and practical as well as one which enables dancers to open to the flow of their innate creativity. Connecting body, mind and soul through physical discipline of the body creates strong, rooted pathways for expression. The experience of different types of movement, the development of a movement vocabulary and increased body-awareness enables a greater flow of expressive energy. These can be developed through imitation of others and through guided explorations of your own possibilities for movement. When using our bodies to move in new ways, our growing self-perception reveals habits of posture and movement that restrict natural expression. What is apparent can be consciously changed or developed.  

While individual expression is inherent, many movements are archetypal, reflecting the human experience in powerful ways. Aligning with those movements and experiencing them through your own body connects you a universal story, yet it is expressed uniquely through you, and develops with life experience.   Awareness of how others dance, and imitating their movements is a communion of direct meaning. In the present moment, through the language of dance, a message is shared that reveals at once our universality and our individuality. When we create or understand a message conveyed through movement, it moves us into a deep place inaccessible through other means. Access to this layer of meaning reveals the infinite possibilities of expression, while retaining a shared significance.    There is a language of dance, saturated with meaning that cannot be represented except through itself.

Dance is the art in which the creator and creation are the same, connecting body and soul in a direct relationship. The dancer is the canvas, paint, painting and painter, expressing what words or image or music cannot.   Allow yourself to discover how you move, connecting to the dance within you. Experience and appreciate the movements of others and enjoy your common humanity. We are all unique and every dance reveals something about you that no other art can. I like World Tree analogies: the deeper the roots, the greater the reach. The more grounded in the body and experience, the more support there is for the infinite creativity of the universe to flow through you. Rooted in possibility, expressing outwards through infinitely diverse limbs.