Dance Shtuff

All attempt has been made to properly attribute these inspirational quotes and poetry.
If any corrections are necessary, please do not hesitate to notify us.

While I dance I cannot hate, I cannot judge,
I cannot separate myself from life.
I can only be joyful and whole.
That is why I dance.
--Hans Bos

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.
--Martha Graham

The following two poems were written by a dear friend, award-winning writer, fellow dancer and student, Janet S.
Emmons, who is Shirabella Nasim when she dances. If you like them, there are plenty more where they came from in
her book, Sudden Tremors of Black Air. Janet now lives in Cortez CO where she teaches belly dance, grows
raspberries, raises chickens and is hopefully inspired to write many more wonderful verses by her breathtaking home
and land.

All Poetry Turns to Dance

These days
All poetry turns to dance.
Words become ringed toes,
An arch in the left foot,
The ringing round heel chiming a newly jeweled ankle.
Legs count and measure each line
While breasts and hips punctuate,
Pulsing meaning through each melodic phrase.

All poetry rhymes now
In the fierce meter of ancient armies,
Golden cities forgotten in prose,
Graceful skirts swirled in spent clouds of desert dust.

Sword-bearing, ready for action,
The snaking hand brushes aside the weak and overwrought pen
And concentrates its caress
On the kinetic reality of a rising heartbeat,
The full flashing eye
Darting from side to side,
Reciting the raw language of love.

Old Dancer
June 1, 2001

Rolls of loose skin fall over her ornate mantle
Almost hiding it's sparkling beauty.
Arms curl at her side,
Fingers, as brown and textured as a bristlecone pine,
Twist as the music rushes through her like a sculpting wind.
It arches her trunk in the same way it has for years,
Rushes into her twisting body.
Rushes beyond her unrelenting self into the hearts of those
Who understand.
Who love to see her dance this old dance.

A bristlecone pine can live for thousands of years on not muchmore
Than wind and sturdy, rock-hard life,
Having learned the secrets of bending it's body to the music around it,
Leaving it nothing like the young tree it once was,
And everything like grace.

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.
--Plato

If you hear a different drummer, take a chance.
The road you choose to travel means the difference in the dance.
--Daniel Morgan

No movement is owned by any culture, only rediscovered.
--Isadora Duncan

The work of another dear friend, dancer and student. I should be quoting The Sound of Music:
I must have done something good…

Storms
By W.L.Steffens
Spring, 2000

A fiery storm blows across the desert floor,
from Morocco's Fez and Marrakech, to Egypt's Nile
Sirocco! Storm of storms—clouds of sand freely soar.
Sirocco swirls and whirls its way across the miles
into the people’s hearts and souls.
Sirocco has the power
to dim the light and make it night, to raise the heat of desert sands.
Most wise folk heed Sirocco’s might—they do not cower
They know Sirocco brings Gift of Life from Arab lands.

Smaller storm, but more profound,
A storm of reds and teals does abound.

A fiery storm flows across a carpet floor,
from Mataam Fez and Bennet Hill, to inviting smile.
Isidora! Storm of storms—above her head, sabers soar.
Isidora swirls and whirls her way with sweet beguile
into watcher’s hearts and souls.
She has the power
to dim the light, then makes it bright and does so in her pure delight.
Wise folk heed Isidora’s might—they need not fear or glower
For she enchants with hip and eyes, and all of her, within one’s sight.

Proper Attire

Personally, I prefer emeralds and rubies
for a truly complete look.
Let others display appropriate decorum
with the well-tailored suit,
the softly folded cravat caressing the lower chin,
the modest mid-calf hem.
We all choose our uniforms.
Can I help it if I want mine to sparkle?

Archeologists, in their Khaki coveralls and sun-drenched hats,
rejoice in beads of bone, dangles of mammoth tusk and tiger teeth.
Do they wonder at the Cro-Magnon’s inability to dress for success?
Amulets and charms are what they find.
Heavy, clanking things made for God knows what purpose.
(or what purpose of God.)

I am primitive, and therefore I need jewelry.
I am the pre-classical carved goddess,
my full figure reclining at the bottom of an ancient heap of rubble,
wearing nothing but several strings of beads
and an enigmatic smile.

--Janet S. Emmons
November 20, 2002

Listen to the music with your soul. Now, while listening, do you not feel an inner self
awakening deep within you—that it is by its strength that your head is lifted, that your arms
are raised, that you are walking slowly toward the light?
--Isadora Duncan

Learning to walk sets you free. Learning to dance gives you the greatest freedom of all: to
express with your whole self the person you are.
--Melissa Hayden

The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has
thought yet about what everybody sees."
--Arthur Shopenhauer

DONT EXPECT

Don't expect the world you see today
To be the one you saw yesterday.

Day after day it spins in the same direction.
Day after day you think it must be working as anticipated.
Day after day.

"The earth does not rotate with perfect uniformity."*
Things change;
Life is irregular;
Time leaps.
Even heaven is changing.

Find yourself at dawn among the singing birds.
Pick fallen seeds from the tops of rocks under a pink and blue sky.
Pull up worms for breakfast.
Sing a new song at midnight,
One for the glowing growing galaxy.

Take off your has-been-and-always-will-be eyes.
You need a new pair of glasses,
One that sees beyond and beneath
Even your daily prayers.

-- Peripatetic Poet © January, 2007

*From an article on Time:. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 15 Dec. 2006

Will they ever come to me, ever again,
The long, long dances?
On through the dark till the dim stars wane
Shall I feel the dew on my throat and the steam
Of wind in my hair?

--Euripides, The Bacchae

The Gods have meant
That I should dance
And in some mystic hour
I shall move to unheard rhythms
Of the cosmic orchestra of heaven
And you will know the language
Of my wordless poems
And will come to me
For that is why I dance.

--Ruth St. Denis

More from the amazing pen of Janet S. Emmons. This one was written for Cori, another
dear friend and brilliant dancer. Cori was Janet’s first teacher, and she was my first student. Reading this poem, I
get misty-eyed, thinking of her—for her bold freedom of expression
and the transfixion of her movements have been powerful forces of inspiration since the
first time I saw her dance.

Dancing Cori
November 22, 2000

I want to dance as well as Cori, who
Can create envy in the most sublime
And graceful goddess watching.

My Cori whirls like autumn breezes full
And picks admirers like the wind picks leaves
From where they cling to living.

If I could dance that well, then I perhaps
Could fell the vict’ries of my body’s ills
And become young again.

But I am old, not fair like she who dances
For those eyes that look at her, none else
(For else is none to see.)

And if, perchance, a wanderer should glance
Upon my withered body as I dance
My own advancing way,

I will of my accord direct him hence
To one who wears the coins of love and hope.
My coins I now will leave

For Cori, who will polish them with fire
By her own passion, dreams and sweet desire –
While I just watch the dance.

If you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, march down there and turn it on yourself.
--Unknown

To dance is to be out of yourself and in yourself at the same time. Those whom you
encompass need only to look…because they are inside of you when you dance.
--Eva Cernik

Dance is work, hard work, and not just physical, but emotional and intellectual and spiritual.
You gotta be fearless, or at least unafraid to face your fears and ride through it, coming out
stronger. Challenge yourself to push for the best, not just diddle around. Take it seriously,
love it, hate it, fight with it, dance with it. Jump off the dang cliff and GO for it!
--Baraka

Do not deny yourself the opportunity for a spontaneous exchange between the musician and
yourself. Let the music come inside of you and dance that music. It is this most intimate
musical self and your most intimate dancing self. Feel the music. Fill yourself with it…
--Artemis

Beledi

Your navel is the Center of the Universe.
Your belly snakes its joy along the warm air
That flows over it.
Hips fly and fill the room with sure strength,
Shaking off a thousand can’ts, don’ts, shouldn’ts.

Your breasts bounce up and back again,
Then swirl around,
Two moons circling your heavenly body.

Your navel is the Center of the Universe.
All the galaxies pivot around you,
Dizzy from your glowing light.

A whole world’s happiness oozes from the earth beneath your tender feet.
It curls around each painted toe,
Circles your fragile jeweled ankle,
Caresses your lively legs.
It is an incense of fragrant life,
Swirling, invisible, soft as starlight,
Strong and sweet.
It is the voice of three billion women
Who whisper, then shout
“Dance. Dance! Dance!!”
While you spin around the Center of the Universe
Making all life possible.

Janet S. Emmons
August 30, 2000

If we seek the real sources of the dance, if we go to nature, we find that the dance of the
future is the dance of the past, the dance of eternity, and has been and will always be the
same.
--Isadora Duncan

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for
us.
--Joseph Campbell

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars…the stars form a circle, and in the
center we dance.
--Rumi, 13th century

DANCE like no one’s watching and
LOVE like it’s never going to hurt
--Unknown

...In the end, I wonder if one of the most important steps on our journey is the one in which
we throw away the map. In jettisoning the grids and brambles of our own preconceptions,
perhaps we are better able to find the real secrets of each place... The journey, not the
destination, becomes a source of wonder.
--Loreena McKennitt

MORE
.......Stuff that I've written - some dance related and some not
.......Tejedora Dance - how I found my signature style
.......Poetry & musings about dancing after injury