We all know Steve Urkel's famous line said in his nasally obnoxious voice, "Did I do that?" It would come on the heels of him making a huge bumble and everyone would be left with correcting the bumble he had just made. The 30-minute sitcom made fixing his mistakes seem simple compared to real life quandaries.
Urkel was a natural born bumbler. We are all a natural born something or other. Since this a dance blog let's assume we are all natural at dance. Some forms of dance may be more of a challenge than others but rhythm, movement, timing, all just happen for us.
We are not natural born Christians, we had to choose to be a Christian. It was a decision. We are products of our decisions.
"I
call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set
before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life,
that both you and your seed may live." Deuteronomy 30:19
You can be a Christian and still make wrong decisions. God will allow it, especially if you're determined to go ahead with it, or clueless that you shouldn't go on with it. See, the idea behind becoming a Christian (besides going to Heaven) is to become a better decision maker because now you have the "mind of Christ" according to I Corinthians 2:16 to aid you when you are clueless.
You've taken and studied dance and the various forms of dance because you didn't want to be ignorant concerning dance. You wanted to be better equipped for that audition or that piece. You wanted to dance smarter, not harder.
The choices you've made concerning dance has not only affected your world but those that are in your world with you...and their wallets, and what they do in their free time, or what weekends look like. Their lives are influenced by what you've decided.
Economists would use the term 'Cause and Effect'. I would say, what you've caused has caused an effect for many people other than yourself. Choices have a ripple effect. When you decide to marry, have children, what job you take, where you live, what hobbies you are in to, where you go to church, even who you study dance from. These choices of yours can end up being sources of strife and contention because the other affected by them will have to experience it right along you, whether they wish to or not.
We've all said, "It's my life, I'll decide"... and you are correct. We've all had to make our own beds but the problem is you aren't the only one that has to lie in it. You wanting to go your own way costs others too, usually in time, money, or sorrow.
In dance pieces, when performing a ripple, the movement travels from one dancer to the next. Ripples are a great visual move that creates a sorta "wow" response from the audience. The largest ripple I've ever been a part of would be a "wave" at a football stadium! The affect from that is a lot of laughter and shouts.
Ripples in real life are either positive or negative, very rarely do they end up with a 'neither nor' results. The whole concept of discipling is a ripple effect idea. Someone mentored me, someone mentored who mentored me, I mentor others, they mentor others and the echo continues hopefully to touch many along the way of raising up disciples of the dance.
If I was a teacher known to be harsh, rude, hard, critical, and never satisfied I might have my own TV show centering on those attributes. But when the cameras are packed up and the set lights are turned off and everyone goes home what has my being nasty done to the formable dancers that were put under my professional care? In their futures, yeah, they might be somewhat successful in their dance careers but was my choice to be Ursala The Sea Witch wise? And what mental and emotional torture would I have placed on these students? Would they end up anorexic? Too self-conscious? Fearful to audition? Too anxious to try? Too critical to self? Would they become man-pleasers?
What words were spoken to demean? What words would still ripple through their thoughts even years later? Would I cause then to feel the need to be highly competitive even to the cutthroat level? All of these things I could cause simply because I decided that was the way to teach and to get results from my dancers.
I decided a longgggg time ago that I would love my students into submission and that I could get more out of them with honey instead of vinegar and fear was not a whip I wanted to use to get the best from them.
As a Christian dancer, you will forever have to make choice upon choice each and every day.You have a Guide, a Counselor, a voice of Wisdom that can help you in picking the right way to go. His answer will always have something to do with does it bring life or does it bring about death. Will it cause a blessing or will it bring a curse?
You choose the effect. Others are affected. That's the ripple.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
March - April The Dance of Tradition
Ballet is a VERY traditional art form and an old one as well, dating back to the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century! It is a very structured art form that has changed only slightly since its' creation. Ballet and lovers of the ballet have endured through many ages of testings of the times. Dancers still love to study the longest surviving dance form there is, ballet.
Jazz dance is only about 75 years old. Hip hop which is only about 40 years old continues to evolve into different dialects of hip hop. There's popping and locking, tutting, old-school, nu-school, breakdancing, house, krumping, electric boogaloo, you get the idea...it's still identifying itself, even today.
With ballet, that's not so, it's very rigid and traditional. The customs and workings of ballet are passed down from one generation to another.You don't break the ballet rules. There's only one way to achieve the look of a ballet dancer, the flexibility, the strength, the beauty....so says the Masters that teach the law of ballet. If the teachers of the ballet from 500 years ago could see hip hop of today, I think we might could hear the turning of their bodies over in their graves!
Because of the major difference between the staunchness of the time-tested ballet and the free-er looser moves of hip hop I can almost see it much like the Jewish religion, which had hundreds of years of perfecting their form of worship, and then here comes Jesus along and completely messed their God-theology all up!
The works, the doing, the tedious practicing, the working your way through the ranks...then, here comes grace...all looking and acting NOTHING like tradition, AT ALL! The attire, the pomp and circumstance, the atmosphere...different all different. Hip hop is nothing like ballet, other than it is a dance form, too.
Jesus was NOTHING like the the tradition of the Jewish religion. Yes, He studied traditional Judaism, all good Jewish boys do, but as an adult He broke with tradition. In reading Luke 11, specifically verses 38-39 (but please read the whole chapter 11 to get the whole idea) Jesus very boldly broke the tradition of hand washing before a meal. It was a Jewish law. You were unclean if you ate with dirty hands and the dishes from which you ate had to be ceremoniously cleaned also. And here's Jesus with the message of grace pointing out what good is it to wash anything on the outside, for tradition sake, but have insides that were dirty or full of sin. He also points out that God (Himself) made the insides AND the outsides of people.
I, in no way, am insinuating that ballet is wrong or sinful or hip hop is good!!! I am using this analogy to highlight the huge opposites that they represent. I am not saying that ballet is too traditional to be studied over hip hop. I'm comparing these two because I am speaking to dancers that "get it"! I hope to stir up your imagination and encourage you to understand that Jesus broke the rules to take us from the law of sin and death to the law of grace. Using ballet to represent the law and hip hop to represent grace is how I felt led to present it.
We've all taken class from dance teachers that were "the law" where there was no forgiveness of mistakes. And we've also had "grace" teachers that loved us into the dancers we are today. Am I right, or am I right? For "grace" teachers desire for you to achieve a triple pirouette but they'll love you and appreciate you whether you do or you don't. They value the "inside" of your cup. The law-loving teachers will make you feel less-than and unworthy of their tutelage if you don't "perform", take Abby Lee of Dance Moms for example. Does that give you an image of what I mean?
Always continue towards doing your dance training well, but you aren't asked by God to do your dance training perfect. Perfection does not open the gates of Heaven for you to enter. It's grace and only grace that makes entering into His perfection even possible.
Go into your next class with the mindset of breaking tradition and dance only because God has created it and wants to share it with you to enjoy. Think of Jesus, if we were a dancer today...would He be a ballet dancer or a hip hop dancer?
Jazz dance is only about 75 years old. Hip hop which is only about 40 years old continues to evolve into different dialects of hip hop. There's popping and locking, tutting, old-school, nu-school, breakdancing, house, krumping, electric boogaloo, you get the idea...it's still identifying itself, even today.
With ballet, that's not so, it's very rigid and traditional. The customs and workings of ballet are passed down from one generation to another.You don't break the ballet rules. There's only one way to achieve the look of a ballet dancer, the flexibility, the strength, the beauty....so says the Masters that teach the law of ballet. If the teachers of the ballet from 500 years ago could see hip hop of today, I think we might could hear the turning of their bodies over in their graves!
Because of the major difference between the staunchness of the time-tested ballet and the free-er looser moves of hip hop I can almost see it much like the Jewish religion, which had hundreds of years of perfecting their form of worship, and then here comes Jesus along and completely messed their God-theology all up!
The works, the doing, the tedious practicing, the working your way through the ranks...then, here comes grace...all looking and acting NOTHING like tradition, AT ALL! The attire, the pomp and circumstance, the atmosphere...different all different. Hip hop is nothing like ballet, other than it is a dance form, too.
Jesus was NOTHING like the the tradition of the Jewish religion. Yes, He studied traditional Judaism, all good Jewish boys do, but as an adult He broke with tradition. In reading Luke 11, specifically verses 38-39 (but please read the whole chapter 11 to get the whole idea) Jesus very boldly broke the tradition of hand washing before a meal. It was a Jewish law. You were unclean if you ate with dirty hands and the dishes from which you ate had to be ceremoniously cleaned also. And here's Jesus with the message of grace pointing out what good is it to wash anything on the outside, for tradition sake, but have insides that were dirty or full of sin. He also points out that God (Himself) made the insides AND the outsides of people.
I, in no way, am insinuating that ballet is wrong or sinful or hip hop is good!!! I am using this analogy to highlight the huge opposites that they represent. I am not saying that ballet is too traditional to be studied over hip hop. I'm comparing these two because I am speaking to dancers that "get it"! I hope to stir up your imagination and encourage you to understand that Jesus broke the rules to take us from the law of sin and death to the law of grace. Using ballet to represent the law and hip hop to represent grace is how I felt led to present it.
We've all taken class from dance teachers that were "the law" where there was no forgiveness of mistakes. And we've also had "grace" teachers that loved us into the dancers we are today. Am I right, or am I right? For "grace" teachers desire for you to achieve a triple pirouette but they'll love you and appreciate you whether you do or you don't. They value the "inside" of your cup. The law-loving teachers will make you feel less-than and unworthy of their tutelage if you don't "perform", take Abby Lee of Dance Moms for example. Does that give you an image of what I mean?
Always continue towards doing your dance training well, but you aren't asked by God to do your dance training perfect. Perfection does not open the gates of Heaven for you to enter. It's grace and only grace that makes entering into His perfection even possible.
Go into your next class with the mindset of breaking tradition and dance only because God has created it and wants to share it with you to enjoy. Think of Jesus, if we were a dancer today...would He be a ballet dancer or a hip hop dancer?
Saturday, January 19, 2013
January - February The Dance of Change
In May 2012, we had our annual Spring show at the dance company I teach for. With prayer and thoughtful consideration I choreographed a piece to Gungor's "Dry Bones to Beautiful Things" to my advanced jazz group.
I thoroughly enjoyed teaching it and, I think, they enjoyed learning it even though it was a several month process. The concept of the piece was to convey how we feel dead and ineffective, or useless and stuck in personal places whether it's in the heart, the mind, or the body.....we all have dry bones experiences.
The costume selected to further enhance the darkness of when the soul-cries-out concept, was a black one-armed costume with shreds of fabric cascading down the bodice to visually paint the picture of the torn anguish when to the unborn again, God is not present, or to the born again, have separated ourselves from His presence.
The music had to be edited to about 8 minutes, down from its' original 12 minutes. I didn't want the meaning or integrity of the lyrics to get lost only because of a time restraint. The entire song takes you from a dry death to a fertile fresh alive praise! It is a most excellent written and composed piece of art! Dance shoes off for Michael Gungor!
This summer my family and I traveled to my husband's Cuban roots, Key West, Florida. I, again, was influenced at the Key West Butterfly Conservatory by the God-process of going from a worm to a flight-ful and fancy butterfly. The becoming beautiful in a tight, constrained place. The cocoon. I made one of my photos, that was actually shot on an ugly, gray, gloomy, rainy day, to be the cover of my Dance Disciples calling cards. You can see the picture on this blog!
The theme seems to have been for my dance journey in 2012 and seems to continue for 2013, is the dance of change. Even so to the point that the piece I am working on now for this particular class is "Paradise" by Coldplay (Thanks Kristen Morrow!). It will continue the thoughts of dreams flying away and disappointment of disillusions. It is not complete yet, but I know the finish will declare the goodness of God and the strength of His gentle hand. It will, hopefully, convey the cocoon containment through the pain of change to the place of divine appointment.
A new year always represents change, but do we ever really change? Are you waiting on God to do the change or is He waiting on you? Have you sensed that it's time for a different beat but afraid to interrupt the drummer? Are you waiting for a trumpet blast or a letter in the mailbox? How many confirmations will you need? Have you been snug in the cocoon boundary and now find it hard to press against its' encasement to let you go? Have you any inkling of what to do first? What has been burning in your heart? Do you think you have to know HOW to change before you can change?
Whether you want your develope' higher, your split grander, more fouette's, your prayer/worship/Word time more intense, or your emotions more mature. A dream taking off in the right direction, a goal achieved, or relationships healed. What is it? Where is it? When is its' time? How is God gonna achieve it without you? Who's gonna make it happen?
Have you put yourself "out there" before and flopped? Has resistance worn you out? Is fear the voice of reasoning in your head? Repeat these words after me..."I'm fid'na, just watch, I'm fid-na". And then bust out all over in full technicolor glory!! Just like the bold, brazen butterfly that had something to give. There's a world out there that needs your beauty, your outspread wings your ability to fly and your feet to pollinate
the garden to which you're sent. Go be awesome.
Romans 12:2: "And be not conformed (cocooned) to this world: but be ye transformed (butterflyed) by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
Through these winter months, a season of seemingly stagnated lifelessness, just as you would prepare for a summer bikini body, or a pageant talent piece, or a spring show, or a try-out audition piece, practice God's presence! Practice and go over your call or your dreams. Practice and mark through where you're headed or want to go. When Spring emerges you will be ready to go and do what you do!
In perception, winter looks like the death of all of nature when in reality it's the rest before renewed life begins its' performance!
"You helped set them free when I thought they had died, the butterflies in me that flutter inside. They will dance again, this I owe to You. And again they will fly because You taught them to." - Author Unknown
I thoroughly enjoyed teaching it and, I think, they enjoyed learning it even though it was a several month process. The concept of the piece was to convey how we feel dead and ineffective, or useless and stuck in personal places whether it's in the heart, the mind, or the body.....we all have dry bones experiences.
The costume selected to further enhance the darkness of when the soul-cries-out concept, was a black one-armed costume with shreds of fabric cascading down the bodice to visually paint the picture of the torn anguish when to the unborn again, God is not present, or to the born again, have separated ourselves from His presence.
The music had to be edited to about 8 minutes, down from its' original 12 minutes. I didn't want the meaning or integrity of the lyrics to get lost only because of a time restraint. The entire song takes you from a dry death to a fertile fresh alive praise! It is a most excellent written and composed piece of art! Dance shoes off for Michael Gungor!
This summer my family and I traveled to my husband's Cuban roots, Key West, Florida. I, again, was influenced at the Key West Butterfly Conservatory by the God-process of going from a worm to a flight-ful and fancy butterfly. The becoming beautiful in a tight, constrained place. The cocoon. I made one of my photos, that was actually shot on an ugly, gray, gloomy, rainy day, to be the cover of my Dance Disciples calling cards. You can see the picture on this blog!
The theme seems to have been for my dance journey in 2012 and seems to continue for 2013, is the dance of change. Even so to the point that the piece I am working on now for this particular class is "Paradise" by Coldplay (Thanks Kristen Morrow!). It will continue the thoughts of dreams flying away and disappointment of disillusions. It is not complete yet, but I know the finish will declare the goodness of God and the strength of His gentle hand. It will, hopefully, convey the cocoon containment through the pain of change to the place of divine appointment.
A new year always represents change, but do we ever really change? Are you waiting on God to do the change or is He waiting on you? Have you sensed that it's time for a different beat but afraid to interrupt the drummer? Are you waiting for a trumpet blast or a letter in the mailbox? How many confirmations will you need? Have you been snug in the cocoon boundary and now find it hard to press against its' encasement to let you go? Have you any inkling of what to do first? What has been burning in your heart? Do you think you have to know HOW to change before you can change?
Whether you want your develope' higher, your split grander, more fouette's, your prayer/worship/Word time more intense, or your emotions more mature. A dream taking off in the right direction, a goal achieved, or relationships healed. What is it? Where is it? When is its' time? How is God gonna achieve it without you? Who's gonna make it happen?
Have you put yourself "out there" before and flopped? Has resistance worn you out? Is fear the voice of reasoning in your head? Repeat these words after me..."I'm fid'na, just watch, I'm fid-na". And then bust out all over in full technicolor glory!! Just like the bold, brazen butterfly that had something to give. There's a world out there that needs your beauty, your outspread wings your ability to fly and your feet to pollinate
the garden to which you're sent. Go be awesome.
Romans 12:2: "And be not conformed (cocooned) to this world: but be ye transformed (butterflyed) by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
Through these winter months, a season of seemingly stagnated lifelessness, just as you would prepare for a summer bikini body, or a pageant talent piece, or a spring show, or a try-out audition piece, practice God's presence! Practice and go over your call or your dreams. Practice and mark through where you're headed or want to go. When Spring emerges you will be ready to go and do what you do!
In perception, winter looks like the death of all of nature when in reality it's the rest before renewed life begins its' performance!
"You helped set them free when I thought they had died, the butterflies in me that flutter inside. They will dance again, this I owe to You. And again they will fly because You taught them to." - Author Unknown
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Jeanna Sumners
Covered in His Grace and dance shoes!
