It feels good to make a difference.

Last week I facilitated a Contact Improvisation workshop with 22 of Colombia’s foremost dance teachers, choreographers and dance academics, by invitation of the Ministry of Culture.

This was one of the biggest challenges of my 34 years of teaching. These were Colombia’s most accomplished in all dance forms: contemporary, folk dancing, hip hop, ballet, street dancing, etc… very BIG personalities from very diverse backgrounds. I was warned that many of this group were in direct conflict with one another.

The first day the Ministry took two hours for introductions and then turned the floor over to me.

I told them,

“I’m extremely honored be invited to work with such a group of intelligent bodies. I read your CV’s last night and I realized that this studio is not big enough to hold such big (grande) people.”

They laughed because this is what many were thinking. I then said,

“We are going to have to make the room bigger with our generosity.”

These BIG folks then found the ground to work together by going to the side of Contact Improvisation that is all about generosity. By the end of our time together not only were they dancing beautifully, they were holding each other with incredible care.