In a modern society of virtual relationships, continuously racing deadlines, and invisible stress, Western classical music and dance provide rich environments for finding ourselves in the present moment.

In my previous post, I explored how conscious listening to Western classical music can sharpen awareness of our relationship to time. Here, I extend that idea to time and space by pairing classical music with classical ballet, which expresses space in a more visceral way than music.

Visible and Invisible Cages

At one time or another, we have had to endure the compression of time and space—financially, spiritually, socially, mentally, emotionally, or geographically. Sometimes we respond by creating our cages in our own imagination. At such moments, we might also imagine our way out of them.

When we get stuck in a cage of our own making, we need some peripheral vision, some help from the collective or higher powers, some revelation through the arts, to find an escape key. If music and dance can help us name the fear—the uncertainty, or the frustration, or the embarrassment—then perhaps we can release emotional expectations and redirect that energy to succeeding or healing or connecting more.

Beyond coping, we look forward to stimulating the brain to desire to communicate with others. To generate curiosity and ask the best questions. The tension and release of music and dance do this instinctively. We can choose to take this opportunity to redefine the moment.

How Music and Dance Set Us Free

In a piece of Western classical music, harmony is the musical element that makes emotional tension and release possible by creating physical instability that then resolves to a stable interval. This natural law of physics is completely compatible with our emotional sensors. A progression of chords will unfold over time. Sometimes we get intentionally disconnected from the home key (the set of pitches that has primary importance), or yield to a new key, and we don’t always know where the music is going to take us.

That sense of uncertainty resonates with real-life experience—living in the present and not knowing what the future will hold. And in dance, this can be expressed through unexpected directional change, interruption of energetic flow, and levels of movement using different heights in space.

In both performance and life, we constantly negotiate between competing and sometimes conflicting thoughts and emotions. The limitless possibilities of what happens next do not have to overwhelm us; they also put us in touch with our sense of free will.

We choose how to respond, how to give ourselves more space to consider options, and how to pace that response in time.

As humans, we have been gifted with the incredible ability to notice simultaneous layers of meaning, to have peripheral vision, and to discern a bigger reality. When we normalize attending to performing arts, we improve this ability.

To Personalize, or Not to Personalize…

Some artists present performance as autobiographical therapy, but this is risky for a big audience with a huge range of comfort levels. Sometimes an unintended result is that we increase the hyper-focus on one painful topic, which is retraumatizing rather than soothing. In somatic bodywork, the work on one pain spot is only helpful when the relief is integrated into the entire body. The same is true on stage.

That integration of different modes is what a live performance offers. The uncomfortable and deeply human experience of “emotional compromise” can be alleviated by stepping out of our personal despair into a collective and attending to the issue through the lens of art rather than the lens of self.

But does the issue have to be shared publicly to be affirmed? Not necessarily. Sometimes the abstract nature of music and dance can give us the cover to try walking out of a cage door in private and without cognitive barriers—even while moving in sync with everyone else in the audience.

Try This Spatial Listening at Home

A dancer’s arm movements (port de bras) are about framing the space between the eyes and the hand. Let your hands slowly explore the space around you, while you focus on the space between your eyes and your hands.

Now put on some peaceful music with a slow melody and focus on the “held spaces” between the start of one note and the start of the next.

Finally, let your hands shape that external space as you breathe to the timing of each note.

Can you experience your agency a little more now?

Performance as an Environment of Consciousness

I use interdisciplinary performance as an environment of consciousness, exploring how the performing arts help us process events and find expressions for our human experience within the limits of mental and physical space. Music helps us become aware of units of time. Dance makes visible the dimensions of space.

As I work with my dancer collaborator Caroline Frank on our upcoming show in New York City, The Compromise of Space, we are exploring the times and spaces in the musical score. Where and how and with what pacing to highlight for the audience a momentary emotional impulse, a mid-range harmonic progression or line of movement, or the overall structure of the piece.

With the performing arts as an essential part of our lifestyle, we strengthen the intentional focus, effort, and energy required to hold more mental and physical space open. With conscious listening skills as training tools to attend to the performance, we become more appreciative of the “here and now.” Schedule a time for daily music listening. Learn to play an instrument. Join a social group that challenges you to engage on a deeper level. Each of these activities improves our ability to find more time and space to savor being alive.