Dancing Through Life | Gathering in a Better World

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In December 2022, the four founders of the “Gathering in a Better World” Symbiotic Dance Workshop—Huiheng, Shiwen, Dajie, and Ajin—found themselves in a roller coaster of emotions. Originally planned to be held in Guangzhou, the workshop was moved online due to nationwide COVID prevention rules. It was the third year of the pandemic and such decisions had become commonplace but this one had a particularly strong impact on the workshop.

Symbiotic dance is an inclusive form of contemporary dance that allows people with and without disabilities to dance together without any uniform expectation of the dancer’s body type or former experience. It invites people to step out of their social comfort zone and embrace their bodies, while recognizing the diversity and beauty of other bodies. Achieving this goal often requires close physical contact in order to build mutual understanding and trust—an experience that no digital medium can replace.

Huiheng, who is blind with only a weak sense of light, is the workshop’s lead instructor. During the workshop, his colleagues narrated the visual elements on the computer screen for him through real-time verbal description. However, his primary path to dance was still the energy of a room filled with fellow dancers and the tangibility of physical contact with them.

Staff member Tutu conducts verbal description in the workshop

Huiheng and the other three founders of the “Gathering in a Better World” Symbiotic Dance Workshop are all disabled artists committed to practicing and promoting symbiotic dance. As members of Guangzhou’s Mistakable Symbiotic Dance Troupe, a non-profit dance group pursuing the same mission, they have organized dozens of dance workshops for the public. Although these events attracted a lot of attention, they usually only lasted for a day, or even a few hours, leaving many participants asking for a more in-depth experience.

 “The process is like boiling soup,” said Shiwen, the workshop’s project manager. “The longer the time, the more flavorful it is.” Four years had passed since the Dance Troupe held its last multi-day workshop, so when the four dancers jointly designed a seven-day, 30-hour program and received support from both the Dance Troupe and the Goethe-Institut, there was a lot of excitement.

Shiwen introduces herself during an interview

The excitement turned into disappointment when the workshop had to be moved online. But the founders channeled their disappointment into a fast-paced problem-solving mode as they prepared for videoconferencing. What they did not anticipate was Guangzhou’s sudden lifting of COVID prevention rules as one of China’s first cities to be granted the long-overdue freedom. However, this overnight policy change brought unknown health risks for the public.

The workshop was less than two weeks away. To protect everyone involved, the organizers of the program decided to keep the meetings online. It was difficult to maintain a conservative stance as they watched the country return to its usual hustle and bustle, but it turned out to be a more sensible decision in the face of the harsh reality: 8 out of 10 staff members and almost all of the 24 participants caught COVID during the program. In the face of COVID’s fatalistic attack, the body is powerless. But it also showed incredible resilience. On the last day of the program, Huiheng exclaimed that his body had undergone a slow but firm change from fever and discomfort a few days ago to a gradual recovery. This change epitomizes precisely the purpose of the workshop: it reveals the seemingly independent yet fundamentally intertwined relationship between body and mind.

Instructors and participants dance together

This relationship is omnipresent in our daily lives, even as we often fail to see it. The reason lies in our loss of self-perception as we maneuver through the stress-inducing mechanisms of urban society. In order to bring the workshop’s participants closer to their bodies, Huiheng starts every session with a sitting meditation and guides them into an inward-looking state. His instruction is  steady and calming, paired with soft music. The participant’s attention spreads from their rhythmic breathing to the shape of their body to the energy flowing through it, from the surface of the skin down to the muscles, bones, and blood cells within. Then, it moves from the realm of the body to the realm of space, from the corners of the room to the reaches of the vast universe, before returning back to the tables and chairs nearby. As our awareness is drawn from near to far, and then far to near, our oft-tense consciousness stretches out like a spring. As it releases and retracts, we take measure of our consciousness and build awareness of our bodies.

Then, Huiheng invites the participants to act out the biggest and smallest, highest and lowest, fastest and slowest movements with their bodies. Such movements are not uncommon in our lives; for example, the body needs to be fast when we are late for work and slow when we sleep at night, dictated by the brain to mutate on command. In the workshop, however, participants are free to choose how they wish to respond to Huiheng’s requests. Removed from the goal-oriented contexts of everyday life, the movements prompted by these requests reveal their pure, original forms; they return the abstract adjectives and their corresponding linguistic symbols to people’s innate physical expressions and acquire different definitions through different bodies. They also wake the participants from the stillness of meditation so they can begin to explore the possibilities of their bodily expressions.

Huiheng dances in the workshop

In the next exercise, Huiheng no longer gives explicit guidance on the participants’ movements. Instead, he invites them to spontaneously change into whatever movements they wish when they hear him say “change,” as if they were given the license to paint on a blank canvas. However, the body is hardly as flexible as one wants it to be. Although the brain wants to change, the body tends to repeat. Behind this repetition may be the body’s long-accumulated inertia and movement patterns that have been solidified by social orders. When people come to an awareness of their patterns and challenge them consciously, their “old” bodies will eventually be given a new life.

Also brought to life are those body parts that are usually overlooked. The energy behind movements are not necessarily located in limbs or torso, but also in fingers, toes, eyeballs, and eyelids. Maru, the artistic advisor of the workshop and founder of symbiotic dance, calls this exercise “seeing a world in a wild flower,” implying that those seemingly insignificant body parts also contain great potential. Giving all body parts the equal attention they deserve, this exercise shows the respect symbiotic dance has for the body itself. Meanwhile, it extends an olive branch to people with disabilities. Whether the body is disabled or not, as long as there is a desire to dance, even hair can dance.

Maru’s drawing of dance movements and the flow of energy

If the purpose of enhancing bodily perception is to help people see themselves, interacting with the group helps to illuminate others. As participants introduce themselves at the beginning of each session, they can incorporate a movement that represents their current feelings into their names. Other members can mimic this movement, as a proactive way of listening and responding with their bodies. This mimicking is not a mere repetition. It is part of an exercise called “magic mirror,” in which people can respond by directly imitating the original movements or indirectly following with their own interpretations. These interpretations provide not only an alternative for those whose physical conditions might prevent them from recreating the same movements, but, more importantly, become a source of creativity: a movement in the arm can be recreated in the legs, a static movement can be compared with a dynamic one, the rhythm of running and jumping can be expressed by the body’s rise and fall, and seemingly ready-made templates contain infinite possibilities.

People with disabilities are often subjected to judgments from others. During the workshop, the ability to modify their movements to suit their needs can help the participants feel less anxious about performing in front of others. Dajie, the session’s assistant instructor and administrator, lost her ten fingers at a young age. For a long time she was terrified of handshakes. Nowadays, she takes the initiative to extend her hand out whenever she meets new people. Whether the other party’s response is friendly or hostile, Dajie manifests her authentic identity with every affirmatve action.

Dajie dances in the workshop

While the bodies on-screen are healed by symbiotic dance, the virus spreading rampantly off-screen brings new damage. Although videoconferencing was a reluctant compromise, for those who caught COVID and went into self-isolation during the workshop, the nightly meetings brought a timely solace. The organizers and participants, who may not have met in reality, became spiritual companions during this difficult period. Whether their videos were far or near, clear or blurred, smooth or laggy, the bodies behind them were as real as ever. The agitated bodies during quarantines and the weak bodies now in sickness are all bodies that deserve care.

The assistant instructor and media promoter of the workshop, Ajin, said when discussing the pain caused by his osteogenesis imperfecta, “To live with and without pain are two sides of the same coin.” No matter which side you are on, you always have the choice to dance, just as you always have the choice to live.

Ajin shares his journey

Author: Sue Mengchen Xu is an art educator and writer. She previously worked in the Department of Access and Community Programs at the Metropolitan Museum, and her writings have appeared in Wallpaper, Artforum, and The World of Chinese, among others.

Copyright of pictures: Goethe-Institut and Mistakable Symbiotic Dance Troupe, “Gathering in a Better World” (2022, Guangzhou)

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