Abundance

Well, it's here, the swelter and accompanying fruits of summer. I was planning to spend yesterday afternoon in relative quiet after a farmer's market visit. But Layla, my teacher, had other plans for me. A casual facebook comment about her visit to a class quickly solidified into a reservation for me for a class with a master teacher, with whom I had not yet studied, Anahid Sofian.

Suddenly, it meant early rising, with no room for a lazy Saturday if I was to get to market and to Anahid's master class. Layla officially kicked me into gear. As my mom said, "There would be no grass growing under either of our feet." And boy, would that be true with the footwork we would do. Aside from workshops, this was my first professional class (although Amar's classes in New York were also advanced, she embraced baby dancers, too). Layla had requested "sixes"--6/8 musical tempo, Moroccan music. One of the songs we danced to, Mach Mach, is featured in this video.

It's really fun to dance to this music because you don't count, you just try to learn to embody the rhythm. And we then did trance turns, where you turn until you shift consciousness. I did touch upon the place Anahid mentioned, going quickly and not caring much about the world around me. It felt wonderful until intense nausea set in. She said it takes practice for your inner ear to learn to adjust. Below is a photo of her company from her website, performing, I believe, a 6/8 number, based on the costuming. She told a beautiful story. She said that when her company performed and did trance turns, the black capes flew and whirred. They performed for children with disabilities at one venue and when the turning began, the children, many of whom were blind or deaf, audibly gasped. They could feel and sense the company's turns.