THE PRACTICE

What Does the Dance Look Like?

 

Cocréa is as much if not more about how it feels as how it looks. Therefore the dance can and will look very different depending on each individual, each partnership or each grouping of individuals. Whatever the pervading feeling practitioners are inviting, the overarching theme we strive for is one of connection to and authenticity of the moment.

As Cocréa’s roots are in Fusion and American vernacular dance (Swing, Blues, Charleston and Hip-Hop primarily), the opportunity is ripe for the inclusion and honoring of other dance styles, forms and aesthetics, and the emergence of altogether new ones including the formless to inform the dance. Typically in the landscapes of Sacred Other and Community, practitioners remain standing while within Self, Earth, Music and Whole, there is an invitation to find expressions that explore other levels down to the ground, architecture of the space and stillness in any form.

There is no fixed aesthetic. The dance flourishes when there is clarity of invitation, elasticity in the connection, and a vividness of presence detached from outcome or agenda that we commonly refer to as “juicy”.

Why Partner Dance?

 

Dancing in intentional connection with others offers a wealth of benefits. It has been shown time and again how necessary it is for us humans to engage in healthy, physical contact with one another. We hold this truth at our core and endeavor to offer spaces for this need to be met in a good way. Building upon this foundational aspect of our humanity, Cocréa opens doorways to finding versatility and ease as we move through life.

Improve Communication

  • Improve awareness and sensitivity to emotional and physiological states of other people.
  • Practice listening to verbal and nonverbal cues.
  • Calm the mind to increase presence and attentiveness to another person’s sharing.
  • Increase emotional intelligence.

Embody Consent

  • Practice asking for and giving your full embodied No and enthusiastic Yes.
  • Honoring and respecting boundaries.
  • Interpreting and understanding body language.

Build Confidence

  • Practice taking risks and trying new things in a supportive environment.
    Become more comfortable with spontaneously expressing yourself through movement.
    Enjoy the experience of feeling grounded in a powerful, fluid body and calm, curious mind.

Practice Community

  • Add variety and fun to your week through playful interaction with likeminded people.
  • Gain skills you can teach to existing dance partners.
  • Experience a sense of belonging within the larger Cocréa and Fusion communities.
  • Connect online with national and international Cocréa community.
  • Have fun and laugh with new friends.

Expand Creativity

  • Open new neural pathways of self-expression through exploration of dance form and a diversity of music.
  • Strengthen and integrate all the parts of your body to support that expression.
  • Release self-limiting beliefs that hold you back from being fully expressed.
  • Develop trust in the phenomenon of emergence and learn to be guided by the moment.

Enhance Somatic Awareness

  • Discover movement of your body as a living wisdom within you.
  • Develop stronger body awareness for more graceful movement.
  • Master spatial awareness for greater ease of movement in daily life.
  • Find flow as you move through your world.

 

 

Elements of the Practice

In a Cocréa practice, the dancer is invited into a contemplative movement journey through 6 Connection Realms towards embodying Five Core Principles using the 4 Step Invitation Circle.

The Six Realms of Connection

Corresponding to and synergizing with the hexagram of the I Ching as interpreted through the [Gene Keys] .

Self, Line 1, the Creator archetype: Core Stability and Foundation
Finding Center in Self and dancing with the formless, simplicity, quintessence, innate style.

Earth, Line 2, the Dancer archetype: Accessing Natural Wisdom
Grounding, expressing reverence, communing with our environment, child’s play, acknowledging where we come from, gravity, levity, the animal body, healing ourselves.

Music, Line 3, the Changer archetype: Opening to the Muse
Refining and expanding listening, inviting precision, focus and stillness of mind, permissioning the body, surrendering to inspiration, enthusiasm, “switching it up”, releasing stagnant patterns, the place of least resistance, being danced.

Sacred Other, Line 4, the Server archetype: Inviting the Highest Version of Each Person
Breathing into the collective Yes, creating ourselves as a safe space for another to express, courage, resilience, listening to the needs of another, dynamic communication between equals, tenderness, detachment from outcome.

Community, Line 5, the Fixer archetype: Being the Solution
The artful voice that guides the energy of the space to its highest cleanest signal, resonating presence in every move, compassion, power of the individual merged with the collective, tireless energy and strength, self assurance through surrender, releasing technique, an end to resistance.

Whole, Line 6, the Teacher archetype: Joining with All That Is
Form and formless co-creating reality, freedom, the anthropos – the completed human, stepping into intimacy and delight in the body as a path to completeness, ending separateness.

A Vocabulary of Play

We love language as much as we love movement. And we love play as much as we love efficiency. We relish finding ways to combine words and concepts so that they elicit a feeling in the body as well as a meaning in the mind.

Here are a few of our favorites so far.

Spinaesthesia: The act of becoming the music; seeing and feeling sound as movement in the body; opening our bodies as conduits for the music; being danced.

Kintimacy: Celebration of each person as both kin and intimate; delight in Sovereignty with Intimacy; honoring all yeses and nos through good consent practices.

Communiyum: Cultivation of direct relationship with the divine through each Connection Realm; Freedom through Form; embracing giving and receiving pleasure as a transformational process; allowing for depth and breadth of authentic feeling.

Uniquilibrium: Reverence for each person’s unique experience; generating awareness to collectively find the harmonious balance in each and every dance.

Facilitainment: Teaching what we need to learn and learning what we’re here to offer; finding the joy and fun in learning.

The 4-Step Invitation Circle

Invite ~ Allow ~ Acclimate (Accept) ~ Relax (Embrace)

 

INVITE: As we move into connection, what excitement awakens and arises within us? How do we translate that excitement into an invitation to connect?

ALLOW: Increasing that energy, we Allow for the emergent potential of the moment.

ACCLIMATE: Through listening we Acclimate to what emerges, containing and harnessing our excitement.

RELAX: Our Relaxation results from finding a natural completion of this movement of energy and we’re enabled to listen for the next authentic Invitation to arise.

These 4 Steps are both micro and macro cosmic. The circle may take an entire dance to move through with a partner or on one’s own, and it may be repeated many times throughout a dance. At an expanded level, we may look at the Invitation Circle on a lifetime scale, recognizing that we accepted the Invitation to be in a body to begin with, we Allow for the emergence of our life experience, Acclimate to the changes it presents to us, and finally Relax as we find completion with the life cycle. Contracting to the space of a moment – potentially infantesimal in time – we move from invitation to counter invitation through the circle (we move through the entire cycle) within the space of a breath. Expand and contract to suit any situation.

This process emerged after Wren became aware of the work of somaticist, Richard Strozzi-Heckler through his training with Skills for Change coach, Nancy Shanteau. Following it’s inception, Wren came into contact with Strozzi’s book, “The Anatomy of Change” and found the 4 Steps analogous to the ground of Strozzi’s work of dealing with excitement in the body with curiosity and interest: Awakening, Increasing, Containing and Completion. As Cocréa is simply one manifestation of somatic intelligence incarnating through humanity at present, it feels important to give acknowledgement to this inspiration.