Last Monday's belly dance class members responded with great enthusiasm to an introduction to Nritya Yoga, or the yoga of dance.
The 12 hours of intense study and practice with Amrita Choudhury, who created nritya yoga after meeting one of the last living temple dancers in India's Orissa province, were amazing and I was eager to share what I am now integrating into my own yoga and dance practice. Nevertheless, I didn't know how the class would view a pretty big shift from what we've been doing for the last few years when we meet in Chiro-Java on Monday evenings.
|  |
The dancers in our class liked what we did... and asked for more. So, bring a veil if you're coming to class tomorrow!
Dance is a sacred practice for me -- meditation, prayer, celebration of the beauty and grace in each of us -- so I am glad to have the opportunity to share more of the global vocabulary with dancers in Seguin.
By opening our minds to explore Middle Eastern dancing, Indian sacred dancing or yoga, we are participating in the dream that Amrita imbibed as a student in
Santiniketan in Northeastern India, and that inspires Ananda-Amrita Dance Creations
...where people from all over the world could work together in a common pursuit of truth, share our common heritage and realize that artists in all parts of the world have created forms of beauty, scientists discovered secrets of the universe, philosoophers solved the problems of existence, saints made the truth of the spiritual world organic in their lives, not merely for some particular race to which they belong, but for all mankind.
Photos were taken during the Nritya Yoga workshop at Yoga!Yoga! in Austin, Texas.
