Move with Purpose

"Your movement instructs your writing. Your writing instructs your movement."

This was what my Dance 240 professor told us before we began moving in class. Today we were to answer a writing prompt as in an English class, but with one catch-- the prompt we had to work on was our own movement.

We began with walking and thinking about our day- how we were feeling, what we wanted to accomplish, just our awareness of our own life at that moment. We then had to create a shape that reflected all this. After settling in our shape we held it while analyzing another persons shape- the tension, relaxation, twisting, weight- memorizing everything about their shape. We than carefully moved into the shape we had memorized. The change was amazing. The shape felt emotionally different from my shape simply because it had been created by someone else's experiences. It had a different purpose.

And that got me thinking about purpose. That is what all my dance classes have in common. Not "point your toes". Not "stand up straight". But "move with purpose". Why? Because purpose is the difference between dance and menial movement.

Movement with emotive purpose becomes dance, just as studying with purpose becomes learning, talking to god with purpose becomes prayer, and making someone cookies with purpose becomes service. In many ways purpose and faith are synonymous. They are both principles of action and power. they both operate in a circular way- always giving in conjunction of the effort we are willing to put in.

Therefore dancers, and artists, are not necessarily those who have mastered certain techniques, but those who are able to take the menial and common and put purpose behind them. Creating something that the human soul can identify as being something greater and beautiful.