how to dance

From David Mura’s Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei. His dance teacher, Ono, is speaking:

“When you are sad, it is not just your single self who is sad, but all the dead people, the great number of souls who are living inside you . . .

“When you dance, you must dance through the wall of the body. During my dance of Mozart, I am not doing a lot outside, but I am moving inside. If I move too much outside, I lose the within, the source or energy, the feeling that propels the dance. In order to break through the wall, I must hold on to and not forget what’s inside. It’s the relationship between what is living inside me and the living realm of the dead that is dance . . .”

David Mura is a poet and an autobiographer. Am enjoying seeing through his lens.