Joy and Following

InterPlay and other dance forms have really caused me to look at my attitudes about leading and following and have taught me that both leading and following are powerful, joyful, and not nearly as diametrically opposed as we sometimes interpret them to be. Indeed, there is a great deal of following in healthy acts of leadership, and there is a great deal of leading in joyful following.

An enormous joy for me is to just follow–to attune my entire BodySpirit to “going with”. I revel in the “eyes” I seem to grow all over my skin. I can be facing away from someone and I can still follow his or her energy. I can be across a room from someone, and I can still be following his or her movement. I can be with an entire group of people, and we are all following, sometimes not even knowing who is leading! (The fluidity of the whole leader/follower dynamic is still a glorious mystery to me, when the pair or group of Players seems to be following some outside entity, as leading and following morph into one another.) I can become so attuned to the leading that my body knows how to move without my conscious brain being aware…I just do something because it is the next thing to do, and the great MIRACLE is when my fellow dancers are doing the SAME THING at the SAME TIME! Wow. Group Body.

Clearly, I love to lead, too. But the great surprise in my life is that surrender, following, and “going with” all contribute to making me a powerful, strong member of my community.