I started to dance before I learned to read, so movement is my first text. The style I learn comes from the Eastern coast of India. It is a Hindu form whose movements are drawn from the devotional dances performed in the sanctum sanctorum of Orissa's Jagannath Temples. The stories we tell with our feet, with our hands, with our eyes, are the stories of all humanity. We dance the loss of lovers. We dance the joy of the first rains. We dance our humility at witnessing miracles. And we dance our darkest demons, for they too deserve a place on the stage. We portray forces of doubt and misery, of destruction and devastation. Our teacher, Jyoti, tells us that in Oriya, the language of Orissa, the word for " vanquishing" also means " being together," or " engaging." We engage with our difficulties. We give them beauty with our bodies.
Whenever I go to perform on stage, my mother tells me, " remember what you are dancing for." What am I dancing for? The divine. Like the dancing women of the temples, we dance to bring pleasure and awakening to the life force that hums in us all.
I have always believed in the gods I dance for, but I feel my understanding of them changes depending on my mood. On some days I dance for the decorated deities who exist high above and beyond us: Krishna, Shiva, Ganga, Kali. Other days, I dance for the lover inside of myself, the one who has always held me. I dance for the tattered woman who sleeps on the sidewalk, for inside of her sleeps a Goddess, too.
I dance to untie knots: in myself, in the world around me. Though I was not raised with religion, I see Hinduism and this art that springs from it as an integral part of my vocabulary and way of being. My many encounters with Indian culture and customs have taught me to laugh at my foreign-ness, to be humbled by not understanding, and to be bold in asking questions about a culture far from mine. But most of all, I have found that where words stop, the body can unfold its own long and beautiful story--and that's a story we will all understand.
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