Natica Angilly is cofounder & director of the Dancing Poetry Festival since 1992 and longtime OPEN EXCHANGE lister in our Dance category. Natica's melding of poetry with dance in an annual performance has helped to revitalize both arts, and she invites you to participate! Natica has received recognition for her dance teaching, choreography, and production of cultural events, including an award from the World Zen Society. The title "Spirit of Poetry" was conferred on her by United Poets Laureate International.

Gypsy passion, goddess enthusiasm, as well as compassion are popular current dance themes. Developing new ways to access the emotions can generate powerful means of expression, especially for poetic dancers. When I work up a fresh approach for a new class or workshop, applying original methods and discoveries to teaching seems to enlarge my own performance with more charisma and depth. My purpose is to offer an environment to interpret the moods and tonalities that color poetic thought through highlighting attributes of passion, enthusiasm, and compassion. Stage performance anticipates the compassion inherent in poetry.

Today's freed spirit of movement seems to have sparked the fervor for gypsy dance styling. The epic—by that I mean heroic, grand, majestic style or structure of movement—can be accessed via the goddess dancing of the muse Terpsichore. To understand and access these modes, one helpful exercise is to consider the degrees of intensity on a scale of one to ten. Each slight increase will contribute to the full range of emotion. With this exploration we can decide what expression might best serve the mood. Here is where unbreakable hand mirrors are useful. Mirror exercises isolate the face so that each dancer can follow the facial relationship to the words, music and intent of the particular dance. Only the face is seen when the hand and arm dance into a see-able pose. "Name that Face" livens this workshop exercise in the ongoing quest to evoke the dance. This exploration works for dancers within any dance style.

Nuance and shading is worth consideration because it is paramount for the dancer to know what her face is saying. Yes, it has been said that all facial nuance comes from a neutral area, but neutral need not be a solemn death mask! In order to be facially sympathetic to poem, music or dance, match your facial message to the message of the movement. Congruence between body talk and face talk can sometimes be elusive. Since every step or gesture suggests or contains inherent feeling, a bit of practice could enormously enhance the performance. Just as a big toothy smile can make you feel good, large body movements convey emotion. However, while soulful interpretation gains little from the "poker face" fashion model look, exaggerated facial expression also detracts. Each facial expression has socially recognizable content.

These dance qualities that I encourage may be accomplished by engaging the friendly and accessible classical Greek muses of the arts. Through the free borrowing of these archetypal dance essences, the dancer is challenged to discover her own method of owning or becoming herself. Our personal expressive motifs enable us to make believable, and bring to life these dimensions of our own performance identities. There have been some surprising revelations in several of my gypsy and goddess essences workshops where transformation was achieved through personally meaningful movement. Some dancers tell me they have found a clear focus, or a more authentic self! Even in class moments of pure fun and frolic, the ability to accomplish dance goals—the achievement of successful dance presence and personal satisfaction—is possible. The act of concentration sets in motion the inclusion of these qualities, motifs, moods and movements. Even if we are "pretending" till it becomes real, we have given ourselves the opportunity to animate our attitudes of passion, enthusiasm and compassion. It has been said that doing is becoming, which reminds me of one of my poet husband Richard's poems titled "Until I Am , I Do I Dance." Just thinking about that poem gets my enthusiasm going! This enthusiasm is a first step, a tool, that creates momentum for becoming myself in the work.

Here is a poem written by Richard while we traveled in Egypt, which we have performed many times:

Hot Lines

Hot, I mean –hot lines!
In Luxor, in Thebes,
in the defaced Queen's Temple,
in the Valley of the Kings
we create modern heat,
write our own cartouches,
push around new dung
to assist the sun–yes!

Then we forget ourselves, go
visit these cool tombs
and become sun dancers,
dancing the ancient lines
dancing the Sun's fire,
dancing in all–whole light,
dancing with the fire of Eternal Life
–so, we resurrect ourselves!

And yes, we return–sweat it out,
hot lines along the Nile
century after century, flow by
flow, becoming its flow,
its fertile life lines,
its light, lining the Sun–
lining lines in the light of life
–hot lines! We become ourselves.

The dance spirit is resplendent with universal symbols waiting to be summoned. What wonderful possibilities we have to become inspired and to inspire through our passion for dance.