Dancing Your Art

Perhaps it is because I've recently become a Nia white belt. I've begun to see dancing in everything. Today, I was taught by my six-year-old daughter about how to dance a painting.

I discovered Charlotte downstairs, covered in paint from head to toe, waving her paint brush in the air and occasionally bringing it in for a landing on her paper. As I watched, I realized she was listening to and conducting a waltz.

As Schubert played, she started swooning around the room, circling her paintbrush, getting the gesture of the music in her body, and then -- swooooosh! -- she'd make that gesture on the paper. The paper was covered with amazing, lively brush strokes and vivid colors.

She turned to me with a 1000 watt smile and said "Look, mommy! I'm dancing my paintbrush!"

Tonight, in the car, she played a different game on our way to dinner. It was dark, and she couldn't see to draw. I suggested that she close her eyes, and draw whatever she felt like drawing. I promised that we would study her drawings in the light, when we could. She engaged in the game, making it her own.

After a while, she announced that she was "drawing what she heard". The sound of the tires, the cars passing by, the hum of the engine -- each became gestures on her sketch pad. At one point she exclaimed, "Listen! Listen! The pencil is making music!" and the fun thing is that I heard it. I heard the music, even before she called my attention to it!  She was making music with her pencil!

When we looked at the drawings, she told me things about the gestures.  "This is where we took that corner."  "This is the pencil music."  "This is vroom vroom vroom".  Great art? Well, in truth the sketches were not.

But the experience most certainly was.

Next time I get stuck on a piece, I think I'm going to dance my pencil and see what music I hear.