Oneness

Are there good and bad emotions, or just judgment?

Is oneness an adjective?

Today was one of those days I like to think of as a culmination, when all the thoughts, emotions, and experiences I've been having as of late blend together just enough to show me the thread that's been tying them all together to teach me all I must know.

I feel myself growing so much right now. I really am quite proud because I feel as though my soul is not this thing orbing outside of me but living all throughout my body. Some moments, it's in my heart. Others, it's in my pinky toe.

And this is the result of the privilege of working with Jacob Gómez, the incredible, groundbreaking choreographer of Barcelona, who has come to SMU to choreograph a piece in 9 days to bring the Meadows Museum Spanish art exhibit to life and take his work created with us to the Spanish Embassy in D.C. So yeah, one of the highest honors of my dance career.

Of course Jacob has given us so much in just these past 7 days (a typical choreographic process is 6 weeks for him, which is even quick) and lots to think/unthink about. But there are these moments with him where he looks you in the soul and shares that he's about to give you a gift, a present for your life. Mine came the other day when he told me he wanted me to explore and know that my body doesn't have one, but many centers.

This morning, this truly shined through in one of the most magical ways I've ever experienced: I evoked tears through my dancing. We had a unique opportunity today in our dance history class to leave the lecture room and dance to the piano. David, the beautiful composer, would play to our movement and he selected me to do a duet with another dancer in my class.

I admire this dancer so much and have always wanted to connect deeper to her. She has a movement style that is so unique and signature to her I instantly worried about how I would look dancing next to her. But David told us something unbelievably important: to improvise is not to have your thoughts slow you down, but to remove the experience of judgment.

So I did exactly this. As the piano organized us, I found myself writing the story with my partner. For me, it was about this desire to connect and walls of emotion and heartspace preventing us from becoming one. I expressed this in mirroring and mimicking her movement but creating my own variations and demonstrating a desire to make contact with her but not being able to until the end.

As we did this, it felt as though I was processing all these occasions where I've tried to be there for those suffering, but felt powerless in my attempt—and of course, this is actually the exact motif of Jacob's piece, the powerless feeling we can have against the politics of the world, no matter how much we may feel inside.

When we finally made contact, we had the deepest hug and turned to look at the room, remembering yet again where we were and realizing my teacher was crying and said, "This is why we dance."

I was so overwhelmed with emotion. It's meant so much to me this year to get to collaborate with these dancers that I've been in class with every day, but almost dancing around. So when we were asked at the end of class to give an adjective, I had nothing else to say and was quite convinced it wasn't proper grammar, but "oneness."

And it is through this that I have realized my most recent revelation.

A tribe is one created through the many

For fall break, just a few days short of when the choreographic process began, I went to Colorado with 8 girls. I only knew 3 of the 8 upon arrival. Over the 5 days we were in the most beautiful nature scene, practically on the mountain ourselves, I experienced a level of bonding that was practically otherworldly.

All 9 of us with such distinct personalities, backgrounds, and different stages of life blended like nothing I'd ever experienced. The dynamic was so strong that if one person walked away, everyone immediately noticed and their lack of presence was felt deeply. There was literally not one issue the entire trip, and with lots of wine, cold temperatures, daunting hikes, axe throwing and archery, connection was all that was found.

And isn't it just perfect that the thread that began weaving for my dance experience began in this trip. One of my favorite moments—if I can even dare use that word with how perfect every second was—was when we turned on music and created an interpretive dance session to all our favorite songs for hours. I struck one movement that was so funny and quite drenched in the liquid blanket I had that night that my Samantha snapped a photo. That photo would completely foreshadow one of the dance steps Jacob would create as a symbolic nod to angels in the dance piece.

And this is where my new tribe was born. Jacob's dance piece was open to the freshman class and dance minors to audition for. It was a hump at first in my mind that the 6 other dancers in the piece had been dancing together for the past 3 months every day and I was meeting them on the spot and having to learn everything from their personalities to their timing in dance. But we have truly become one living breathing organism that plays 7 characters, many art pieces, and souls in our pinky toes to our outermost eyelash.

The piece is truly about criticizing and feeling powerless to evil and injustice in this world through collaborating with the Spanish art exhibit in the Meadows Museum. You know that whole thing of if there is a good god, why is there bad? It's screaming at the diplomats on the right side of the room, crying out to the virgin mary in the back.

And our task has been to create even more meaning for ourselves, which in that I have found a connection to all my centers, all my soul spaces, all my emotions that I usually cannot bring with me to create an illusion of elegance and pure joy in ballet.

And I've realized just how much my brain turns on when I think about emotions. How quickly I can move out of this soul space and into the labeling, judgment side of me that wants to define everything it comes across—that's a good emotion, don't bring that to the piece, ooo that's an ugly, bad one, this works for this piece.

And I did it again tonight for the performance. I turned the slow thinking brain off to experience raw emotion. In turn, we had the best run thus far and it even was striking enough that after the panel where I got to share about the piece, an audience member came up to me and said "you're gonna be a choreographer."

Today, I learned I can actually move an audience. Like I have the power to bring someone to tears, a teacher that sees me every Tuesday and Thursday, but saw me anew today, and strangers alike because I didn't filter my emotions. I let anything and everything pass and express because it, and we, are all one.

And for that true oneness, it takes a tribe, a piano, a composer, a choreographer, a teacher, dancers, a vision, and a million souls made into one.