Picture thanks to © Courtesy of Ana Lee Evans (Texas / USA)
Ana Lee Evans is a highly gifted and award-winning Bulgarian dancer living in Texas / USA. She tells us what dance means.
Written by Ana Lee Evans
Texas – July 09, 2020
ABOUT DANCING
I’ll begin with the most important, because I’m in a hurry for rehearsal and don’t have the time to be polite.
Dance only in case of emergency. I have a friend, who regularly wets her pants on the way home. She just can’t hold it and as we’re walking down the bridge she says “Ana… I wet myself again.”. Dance is physiology, if you can stay still, do it, because if you start dancing you’ll look just like my wetted friend- you can’t walk dry out of the water. Dance is bringing out all your fears- you can’t manipulate your body the way you manipulate your mind or heart.
Choreography should be used only as a starting point, direction, crutch. There is no such thing as good or bad choreography. When visible, the choreography is weak. When looking at the dancer instead, then the choreography is „good“.
Technique comes as a result of the inner need for motion. The technique improves with the increase of the craving. ..and the opposite.
Music. You should dig into it as if it was a man. Shove into the rhythm as if it’s your sleeping lover’s arms you’re shoving in. Stretch the time, or absorb it greedily. Music is a partner, not a background motive or a hint for a conception. Music is the partner, who keeps you from catching a cold when wetted and wouldn’t let anyone to hurt you. I was asked, which part of the dancer’s body is the most important one. its the ears. Especially when dancing in silence. The ears are somewhere in your belly, around 4-5 cm beneath the bellybutton. Dance is what do you hear.
Space. Imagine your dance is watched not from outside, but from inside of you, from your right knee for example, or from your liver..how this changes your dance?
Dance is biggest „yes“ to life and death, plus sir Isaak Newton’s lows of motion. Study physics. People ask who influenced me most, I say gravity and I really mean it. Dance is when a part of me is holding out to the desire to move. Keep it simple. Dance is to wet myself instead of sitting comfortably on the toilet seat and take pleasure in emptying my urinary bladder. An explosion, slow or fast. Dance is when you are danced, overwhelmed by love and everything else is good or bad gymnastic. Use your mind only to protect your body from hurting and never for explaining what are you doing, because you dont know, mind is an imitator and because everyone from the ones that watch will see his own version, you dont have to tell them what to see, but to remind them they are free, although this is most irritating and scaring thing for people. And remember- the process is the only result.
And I’m not that stupid, I can see that our world is threatening us with the exact opposite of what I wrote. Muchas gracias.
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