 There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them. Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, Bernadette is a co-founder and Director of DMAC-UK CIC: a group of local artist with diverse cultural and ethnic origins offering, collectively, a rich and varied range of movement and performance arts. “Our commitment is to create inclusive center of excellence bringing movement and performance based art forms from across the globe into the heart of Bristol for the benefit of the whole community”. With this objective DMAC has opened a new dance centre - InAlignment Studios. The new centre is superbly located in Hamilton House in the controversial and diverse environment that is Stokes Croft, just a few minutes walk from Bristol’s main retail centre. As the Bristol Evening Post puts it, ‘it used to be an infamous haunt for street drinkers in Bristol, but now Hamilton House office block is becoming one of the most sought-after locations in the city.’ The whole building(s) is simply buzzing and alive with artists, creators, visionaries, musicians and social enterprisers who are making a remarkable attempt to ‘co-exist’ with themselves, each other, and the environment Now working in partnership with the Hamilton House project co-coordinators Coexist (www.coexistuk.org), DMAC already has rich menu movement forms from around the world: From African Dance to Salsa and Belly Dance, From 5 Rhythms and Yoga to Street Dance and Hip-Hop, From Can-Can to Ballet, plus drumming, voice work and more. The vision includes Drug and Alcohol Free Dance Club nights, weekend schools for children plus outreach to communities with out easy access to the movement arts.
There are likewise three kinds of dancers; first, those who consider dancing as a sort of gymnastic drill, made up of impersonal and graceful arabesques; second, those who, by concentrating their minds, lead the body into the rhythm of a desired emotion, expressing a remembered feeling or experience. and finally there are those who convert the body into a luminous fluidity, surrendering it to the inspiration of the soul.
© 2010-2012 Bernadette Ryder & all quoted sources. |