My Dance of Life:
Teshuvah
תְּשׁוּבָה
to turn towards
one’s self
Abstract
This project resulted in a book of poetry divided into three sections. Each section is accompanied by a video of original choreographic work; each choreographic work is set to one of the original poems from each section. The question proposed for this project is, how can I act on my insights, reflections, and thoughts as I move through life, in order to engage more fully with my own mental/conscious experience?
Therefore, the purpose of this project is to explore how utilizing poetry and dance to engage with my mental landscape might be a means to catharsis, for full self-expression and acceptance, and self-discovery. One of the art forms utilized, which I have significant experience in, is dance, and the other one which I am a novice at is creative writing. Writing makes the thoughts and internal experiences concrete by externalizing them. Dance brings these reflections back into myself through embodiment. The creative and choreographic process involves returning to the words and the movement again and again. This constant creative and physical engagement with the written insights, reflections, and thoughts that I have as I go through life helps me to integrate them into my being so that they are an active part of me, both consciously and subconsciously, influencing how I move about the world.
The integration of all three written sections progresses from a sense of brokenness, grief and loss to one of hope, self-love, and being grounded in oneself. This reflects the pattern of the Jewish calendar. During the Jewish spiritual new year, Rosh Hashanah, Jews practice teshuvah, or repentance. However, teshuvah can also be translated to “turning towards oneself.” Each section of this project turns towards myself, from beginning to end, and the three parts of the project as a whole do the same
Inspiration
In the Fall of 2019 I choreographed a dance to a poem I wrote about my mom, both titled, “What My Mom Has Taught Me”. The poem accounted for numerous pieces of advice and things my mom had said to me over the years. I found that, at the end of the choreographic and performance process, I felt myself living and integrating the lessons shared in the poem much more than I had been prior to the experience. I felt the words become a stronger presence in my consciousness, a much stronger influence in guiding my actions. The process of choreographing the words, of listening to them over and over, to embodying the words in movement, of practicing these embodied movements, helped me integrate these words into my life. I had always known them – I did write the poem of course – but I did not truly feel myself living them until after I had embodied them in this choreographic and artistic process, a key part of which was sharing with others.
This experience is what inspired me to embark on this creative process. The intention was to integrate the compartmentalized parts of my identity and my life into myself as a single whole, by using various art forms and the creative process to engage with my own mental landscape.
Importance
Art and creativity was an integral part of my upbringing, with my first memories of elementary school that of participating in a local art therapy program in my home town that my father helped facilitate. As I’ve gotten older and had to narrow my educational and professional identities to fit cultural demands, the presence of an artistic practice has become less and less in my life. In parallel to this, I’ve struggled with the dissociation and suppression of emotions and insights. Using art as a way to bring that out of me, and to continue to engage with it, has been and is extremely important for me breaking those habits of disregard and compartmentalization of self; modern society often encourages and enforces compartmentalization, particularly as a spiritual artistic woman in the engineering and STEM field, I often feel the obligation to omit and disregard parts of myself in various environments. However I am not a series of adjacent identities, but in fact a single being with a single identity that holds multiple facets together at all times. As an artist, I have taken a deeply personal approach in an attempt to repair the fractures and grow in ways that escape rational methods. This project, in its particular interplay of art forms, seeks to reintegrate the experience of fracture and dissociation that has continued to plague my own sense of self, as well as contemporary culture at large.
What is Teshuva?
Every year during the Jewish Spiritual new year, Jews practice Teshuvah; traditionally the hebrew word for repentance - teshuvah can also be translated to “to turn towards, or, to return, to one’s self”. It’s a time to reflect on what and how we’ve been over the past year, what mis steps we’ve made. The aim is to recenter ourselves, and to return to the path we want to follow.
I’ve named the overall work, “My dance of life: Teshuvah - to turn towards one’s self”.
Download Poetry Manuscript PDF
Table of Contents:
Hineini - הִנֵּֽנִי - Here I Am
Waterfall, crashing
Dance: I Found My Faith
La’merkhav - לַמֶּרְחָב - to the (wide open) space -
A Spring, bubbling
Dance: There is Always More Than This
Tikkun Olam - תִקוּן עוֹלָם - repair the world
A Well, nuroushing
Dance: I Am A River