particular dancers. The exercise is equally as fundamental and, in
itself, extraordinarily simple. All you have to do is close your eyes
and allow your partner to lead you -- wherever and however. The group
instructor will tell you how to lead and how you will be lead.
I've been doing this exercise for years now with the people of West
Coast, with people in class, and with people we've met while touring.
I was fascinated by what I learned in the exercise this time.
When the exercise is called "blind lead," the effects on the body are radical.
All of a sudden, the person with their eyes closed is "blind." They
assume the position -- not that position -- the one that they think
most closely approximates the somatic experience of being blind.
They've had something taken away from them; they go stiff. Not being
able to see "paralyses" them. They stand up straight and unyielding.
Even as they parade around the room and move a little more in their
bodies, there's something tight or tense in their bodies: they aren't
seeing and the rest of the body knows it. The listening comes from a
place of deprivation and from a (misguided) cultural understanding of
disability. And it resonates in the body. It resonates in the body.
Huh.
I avoid walking in darkness, because my proprioception is less than normal, and I fear falling again. But if I stop listening to the fear and start listening to the world I can manage okay.
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