I’m happy to report that now that almost a year has past since The Freebox Everyday Dance Project’s finale, I am able to look back on the project with a great deal of love and respect for myself and all the people who supported me through it. I also can see that there is a lot of good in what I was doing. Creative, poignant, funny, goofy, strange – but a full artistic range was expressed in the pages here.

Where would it all lead I wondered. I don’t know the answer to that completely yet, but I do know that my mission is still to dance and get people to dance with me. But even more than that it’s to champion dance for the healing tool that it is. Through dance we can experience our soul and there is little that can match that. I appreciate my many teachers, but especially Vinn Marti, creator of the Soul Motion movement community (www.soulmotion.com) for gracing me with permission to find the courage to dance from my heart and to share from my authentic truth.

This blog will evolve to expand The Freebox from a blog that charts my personal process to a place that invites others to join the movement literally. The Freebox is a space of growth, healing, community and fun. Oh yes, FUN! That is our main goal. Thank you for checking in here…and I look forward to sharing the evolution with you.

For a long time I didn’t look at this blog or watch the dances, but lately I find myself surfing over to Youtube and watching as a witness. I like what I see and it makes me want to dance more. So I figured, why not. Why not just post a video when I feel like it? Maybe I’ll find a theme to work on, but in the meantime why not just dance? So here it is, yesterday’s dance. I showed it to Mark last night and he said he could see some real shifts in my movement approach from the videos of a year ago. I’ve been working on opening up my upper back and I can see it too. I was happy with the balance on some of the moves that surprised me when they showed up. It’s a one take improv dance – oh what gifts show up in just listening….

She said she had saved the Kansas City Star newspaper article about The Freebox Everyday Dance Project since June 15, 2010 and was excited to have the opportunity to do a video with me.
My visit was a surprise to the staff, but they all were good sports and played along. We danced to ABC by the Jackson 5.

As I write this, I am acutely aware of an unfolding crisis of potentially epic proportions happening right now in Japan. I am praying for the safety of my friends Sato, Mariko, Satoru, their family and of course all of Japan. I ask myself how to live when tragedies of such proportions exist. The only answer I can come up with is to do so with reverence and appreciation for what I have and to spread joy. Tragedy will continue, it needs no help. Spreading joy in the midst of it is valuable work.

That basically sums up why I did what I did last year. I’ve been asking myself what it was for, what it was all about and what do I have to show for it. The world may never pay me money for frivolously spreading joy, but I’m in it for the long term rewards.

Thank you Edward Kramer, Tracy Phillips and The People’s Post in San Diego for producing this wonderful

In the meantime, I’m refocusing my energy to my new teaching business www.DanceKansasCity.com. I’ll be teaching my lessons mostly at Ballroom Unlimited in Mission, KS. In some ways, I’ve come full circle – back to teaching ballroom in a studio owned by one of my former competitors and teacher, Perry Gingerich. Perry has welcomed me with open arms and he remembers me in the hey-day of my competitive dance days. It’s really nice to have such a warm welcome. An added bonus that I hadn’t expected is that I’ve been warmly greeted by his students – and even ran into an old friend from years ago who still takes lessons with him.

I’m strangely excited to mix the old and the new and to return to my former passion, ballroom dance with renewed vigor. The studio is warm and friendly and I feel optimistic that I’ll be able to work closely with the other staff to continue to develop my dance knowledge and even create some fun show numbers together.

I love teaching and I’m looking forward to building a student base. If you know anyone in the Kansas City area that’s interested in learning to dance, I’d appreciate if you send them my way.

Thought you might like to know this. Last night, as I was dancing that fox-trot, it occurred to me, so clearly, that without your inspiration with your dance a day challenge, I would be missing this huge thing in my life. Sure, it’s only a 5 minute dance and maybe another 5 – 10 minutes to write it up with the pictures and the video link, so what’s that? 15 minutes of my day – but the rewards from that concentrated time are rich beyond words.

My dancing has improved, in spite of the fact that I rarely go dancing anymore now that there is no more Tuesday night thing (still working on replacing that in my life) and I am so much more in touch with what is going on internally when I dance – the emotional and spiritual components, especially the spiritual, had been lost on me. Dancing solo, though, I am not thinking about following, which frees me to think about all that is going on inside of me during that particular dance.

Oftentimes, I start out totally bummed out or disgusted with some parent’s complaint against me. The last thing I feel like doing is dancing, but I have made this commitment to myself, so I go forward. Every single time – yes – 100% of the time, as I walk to the stereo to turn it off, I am laughing, saying out loud, “That was good,” or “That was fabulous!” – but never have I ever even one time said – “Oh I wish I hadn’t done that.”

All of this is to say that I am so surprised at what an impact this Dance a Day Challenge – turned Dance a Day Celebration has had on my life – my whole life, not just my dance life. That, and of course, to say thank you – you have made a difference in my life, and I wonder how many other people you have affected in a similar way, and you just don’t know it.

I send you thanks and love across the country, my friend.

Diane

Ok, I’m tearing up now. Thanks Diane!

I have to admit that I’ve had a little post project depression. There is a bit of a void now that I’m trying to figure out the best way to fill…and how to keep the momentum that I created towards the end of last year. I’ve put out a call for contributions to this site and you’ll soon see some guest posts – maybe even one from you? (YES that’s an invitation to send me something in writing about your daily dance experiences and/or a video of your dance!)

In the meantime, I’m going to take my own advice (and Louis Prima’s) and keep smiling!

There was an imposed structure to the project: one video every single day. Beyond that the time of day, how long the video was, what the content would be (dance of course…) and how long I spent on the process all were left open – as long as I posted something each day. I loved the creative discovery process that allowed me time and space to let the muse show up, but I also struggled with the lack of structure. I’ve known for a long time that discipline helps me to thrive. It took discipline to post a dance everyday, but now I’m looking to add an element of planning and scheduling that I didn’t exercise last year. I’ve got tons of experience planning big events, dance camps and shows – it’s just been a while. Like all muscles, it will come back it’ll just take a little bit of time and some practice.

Last year my powers of authentic expression grew exponentially, now it’s time to package that expression and give it the chance to have the most positive impact possible. I came across some old footage from my ballroom days – a time when my life was super structured. It’s fun to see me with my former partner, David out on the floor of the United States Ballroom Championships – right there with Mary Murphy and some other amazing professionals. This year I’d hope to recapture some of the spark I had when I was at this competition level and funnel it into building community through dance.

Times are tough everywhere and between moving to a new city, obsessing over this project and Mark’s magazine clients starting to fold….we have to take some drastic action, so I got a job as a hostess in a restaurant yesterday. It pays a fraction of what I would make teaching dance or using my other professional skills as an actor, choreographer and voiceover talent, but it’s regular work, the manager seems genuinely excited to have me there – and heck, maybe I’ll get the patrons dancing to their tables.

I’m telling you all that as a preamble to say that I’ll share with you my dream of how I’d like to see this project develop with the caveat that it’s only a dream until some resources and external support help me manifest the vision.

Dream -The Freebox is a movement (literally) that gives people the permission and freedom to dance -no matter how well or how badly, whether there is music or not, and in any location that inspires them; alone, with strangers and with friends.

Mission: Get people to Sit Less, Dance More – make “everyday dancing” a cultural norm.

Vision: Create fun public dance events, make fun, entertaining, high production value videos. Expand Thefreebox.org content to include videos from other Everyday dancers. Partner with a TV show or corporation that sees the cultural, creative and health benefits of The Freebox to provide content for their program and/or outreach programs.

Purpose: To make the world a happier place. To place a high value on dance as a form of community building and self expression. To encourage people to sit less and dance more.

In order to do turn the dream into a reality, I am looking to partner with people who:

• Want to provide content (video or written posts) to this site about their everyday dance experiences.
• Want to collaborate with me on producing public dance events
• Have technological skills (mainly video production and web design) and want to partner in the mission of The Freebox.

Some people are in a position to really help me in this mission:

• Do you work at a company that could use a Freebox dance event to promote its brand?
• If you work in the advertising industry – do you have a client that could use Dance as part of a commercial campaign or to promote fun brand outreach events?
• Do you work for a television show or a major website that would like to have a regular dance segment?

If you feel you have any interest in participating – leave a comment or shoot me an email Mary(at)thefreebox.org

If you feel like going the extra-mile we’d love for you to make a simple webcam recording of yourself answering these questions and sending us the raw file. (I can help you figure out how if you want) Otherwise, please just click this link and take 3 minutes to answer the questions. I really appreciate it!

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