Keep Calm And Carry On? I’d Rather Dancethef*ckon.
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Some have a Loving-Kindness Meditation practice.
Some commune in congregations.
I dancethef*ckon.
I dancethef*ckon, preferably at dancethef*ckon-athons. The dancethef*ckon-athon is a practice born of the need to clear the crud that comes with being human. It frees body, heart and mind of lingering emotional energies that get stuck, heavy, and bring us down.
It calls us to come together with like-mindeds and like-hearteds, and shimmy-shake ourselves free through the power of intent, movement and community. It is a sacred practice. It’s a cathartic body prayer.
Notf*ckingwithstanding the irreverent name, that dance floor becomes holy ground. Perhaps it becomes holy ground partly because of the name, which, in and of itself, helps loosen some shackles of shoulds that Life brings everybody’s way.
It’s the morning after the second annual dancethef*ckon-athon. I’m basking in the afterglow of the cauldron of dance transformation.
It was fiery, literally and figuratively. It was feisty. Cathartic. Transformational. Wild. Woolly. Wondrous. A sweet sweaty release. Beautifully embodied emboldening. An empowerment party. Power-flippin’ful. Sacred. A shedding of skins. It shook some things loose in me. It birthed gratitude.
We became an almighty dancethef*ckon tribe.
I want the practice of dancethef*ckon-athons to spread like wildfire following gas-lines because I wholeheartedly believe that the more of us dancethef*ckon, the fewer reasons we humans will concoct for ourselves to have to dancethef*ckon.
The need to navigate through Life’s ick is universal. Dancethef*ckon-athons are some of the most immediate, effective, transformational and fun ways to shift the ick I have experienced.
I invite all into the dancethef*ckon tribe by sharing how and why this practice was birthed, plus the recipe of ingredients to create your own event. Take these ingredients and runthef*ckon.
Use what you wish, change what you wish, use this template as a springboard into your own unique cathartic expression of dancingthef*ckon. I offer this up to any and all who feel a need/desire to dancethef*ckon (i.e. all humans).
What sparked the need/desire in this human was a big boulder of gloom. I found myself feeling stuck. Mired in the muck. Feeling down. Done. Wanting to move on. Several icky sticky years spent maneuvering around what I call Personalitics had taken their toll. Mojo? Drained.
{Photo credit: Tracy Stamper}
I am a product of the culture that I call The Great WASP Way. Don’t talk about it. Gasp! Heaven forbid! Sweep it under the rug. Ignore it. Be polite. Push it down, down, further down. Keep a stiff upper lip.
The Great WASP Way is epitomized by the words Keep Calm and Carry On. I imagine other cultures do the same. This WASP speaks of what she knows.
Originally, the Keep Calm campaign was adopted by the British government as World War II threatened to implode. The throne maneuvered to pacify subjects terrified by constant threat of impending airstrikes.
The Queen in me no longer wishes to Keep Calm when energy desperately needs to move. Sometimes, keeping calm just doesn’t f*cking work. This Queen wants to rock her throne alongside other Queens and Kings rocking their thrones as we high-vibe for tribe across the Kingdom.
I wanted my mojo back. My carefully crafted combination of direct, honest communication, verbal processing, journaling, visualization and meditation hadn’t exorcised the sadness demon I’d dragged around for years. My mind knew that the hurt touched deeper layers lingering from long ago.
Dissecting the situation mentally hadn’t shifted the fact that my body felt the heaviness of bursting-at-the-seams emotional baggage.
Aha! My body. Of course. My body. Time to turn it over and rest into her wisdom to move and transform stuck energies. I needed to move this issue through my tissues. Time to light it up in a farewell blaze of glory and send the sparks flying. Every time I dance consciously, my emotional state shifts.
This big boulder of lodged emotion needed the extra excavation of a dancethef*ckon-athon. I needed to go through my body to free her.
Finding and using one’s voice helps move stuck energies. Writing it into existence assured I’d follow through and dance this out of my bones. My first step towards the dance floor was a Facebook post:
“Sometimes you just gotta ripoffthebandaidinonefellswoop speaktruthfromlove feelthestingofsadness trustyoudidyourbest exhaleaccumulatedhurts feelthelovefromfriends and dancethef*ckon. Dancing through. Dancing on.”
Electric responses. I oh-so-clearly wasn’t the only one needing to dancethef*ckon. Fabulously fast and furiously, this post sparked a high-speed train of collaboration, drawing dancethef*ckon-athoners from six cities to events in two cities. What did this resonant response tell me? We need dancethef*ckon-athons.
Here’s how this train got chuggin’…
A friend of mine in Boston (home of the sister event) planted the seed: “Is there a dancethef*ckon playlist yet? Happy to contribute.”
The movement teacher in me knows that where there’s a rockin’ playlist, there’s a rollin’ dance event… and so began the annual dancethef*ckon-athon.
Disclaimer: as a Nia practitioner, I am deeply grateful for my Nia practice for teaching me to dance my emotions through my body. Though I do share Nia as a Teacher and Trainer, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent Nia…. and they also do not necessarily not represent Nia.
The kindling was lit. This was on its way to becoming a communal practice. Here are the ingredients to bring this practice to your community:
Invitation
I wanted to clearly set the intent, and portray what to expect from the very moment a dancer heard the word dancethef*ckon-athon. Here’s the call I sent out:
You are cordially invited to the dancethef*ckon-athon. We all have something to dance through. The power of dance clears the container, unburdens us of the weight of Personalitics, old dusty cobwebs, plastic masks, and festering funky gunk.
As we dance through the layers, we’ll blow shackles off in swirling puffs of fire-infused glitter and get on with our glorious selves. We’ll shed what no longer serves. We’ll shake it straight out into the ethers and create the space for a new, authentic way to come together in true community.
We’ll celebrate ourselves and our fellow dancers in our unique expressions of dancingthef*ckon. Our lights will shine so f*ckin’ bright that we’ll positively glow. We’ll dancethef*ckonward and upward, returning to joy. This is an open invitation to dance footloose ‘n fancy-free! This is my dance. This is your dance. This is our dance.
There’s no wrong way to do this. Only what’s right for you.
Playlist
A collaborative space was created as I invited dancers to contribute songs that spoke of moving on. This personalized the dance with musical gems that honored each dancer’s desire to move through. Magic blossomed on the dance floor. With the first few notes of each song, the contributing dancer’s spirit lit up.
I witnessed their dance burst into flames. It was beautiful. Every sparkling time.
Container
All hail the almighty Fuck-It Bucket! As ideas were brewing, a friend shared this piece-https://rebellesociety.com/2014/03/21/your-new-life-philosophy-the-fuck-it-bucket/, providing a literal and figurative container for the event. Another friend who drove to town for the event decorated our official Fuck-It Bucket.
For the figurative container, I teamed up with a friend as co-facilitator. She brought the brilliance of grounding the fiery energy at the end with a closing circle, by weaving into the playlist two songs that shifted the energy from fiery to sunshiny.
Time to set the crud-busting-worthy energies ablaze.
Event
How does one dancethef*ckon? Here’s how we did it. Dancers gathered in an opening circle. My co-facilitator and I shared the tale of the dancethef*ckon-athon’s co-creation. Anybody who wished to speak their intent aloud was invited to do so. Everybody was invited to write what they wished to release on slips of paper.
My request, as the one lighting the fire: no names on papers. That’s not karma I wish to burn. Helpful hint: use small slips of light paper and crumple them up. They’ll sizzle sooner.
Papers were tossed into the Bucket and lit. At the height of the flame on the count of three, together we yelled: F*ck It!
Music pulsed through the speakers. We danced. Oh, did we dance! There was no instruction/guidance, no teacher/leader, no steps/choreography — just space and trust that each body intuitively knew what to do. Sometimes, that meant dancing full-throttle. Sometimes that expressed itself as two dancers twirling arm-in-arm.
Sometimes, a dancer remained still until the urge to move moved them. Sometimes, slow, gentle, heart-centered movement reigned.
We yelled. We shed tears. We laughed. We danced however the f*ck we wished to dance in a cathartic release of what was chucked into the F*ck-It Bucket.
When the sunshiny songs arrived, we melted onto the floor in a circle. Mother Nature knows how to recycle our energies. We brought ourselves down into her loving embrace. More tears, smiles, a chorus of singing. Goosebumps. And lightness. There was levity in the room and within me.
It felt unbound, airy, open and free. I sensed healing.
Your invitation
Call in your tribe. Coming together in tribe amplifies the energy of intent. I can and have dancedthef*ckon many times on my own. It’s powerful… and it is nothing like riding the waves of energetic catharsis within community. To experience community as a place of healing can be healing on the deepest and highest levels.
Many of us danced out the demons of wounds sustained through relationship and/or group dynamics. To move through those wounds within community is a powerful healing elixir. Catharsis through community calls.
Fellow future dancethef*ckon-athon tribemates, may you dance yourselves unbound, airy, open and free, and have a healing blast. May all your dancethef*ckon-athons kick ass. Welcome to the tribe.
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Tracy Stamper is a dancer at heart, in mind, of body, and with words. She is blessed and blissed to call dancing her profession, thanks to the transformational conscious movement form of Nia. She teaches Nia classes and offers Nia White Belt Trainings for fellow dancers at heart, in mind, and of body. Tracy lives in St. Louis in a home on a little hill, with a whimsical wind sculpture out front, and two crazy rescue beagle boy dogs and the two human loves of her life inside. Her current favorite colors are purple, orange and glitter. She likes her chocolate dark, her little bubble of a world Personalitics-free, her inspiration flowing, and her car dances to be uninhibited. You can connect with her on her website, Nia website, and Facebook.
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