Jodie Cole reflects on the last Associate meet-up

“Dance is unstoppable expression. Each gesture, flex, slide, or shape we make in response to music contains communication and history”. Emma Warren, Dance Your Way Home.  

Hello, I’m Jodie! I’m a choreographer, facilitator, and producer, with complex trauma. Dancing, along with community, has been a significant aspect of the slippery and precious journey of coming home to myself.  

I’m an Associate with AHI along with 8 extraordinary creatives and in October we met for our 3rd group get together, and much to my joy, WE DANCED!!!! 

But before we did, we chatted, laughed, had a much needed catch up, and did some Action Learning!  

“Action Learning is an intervention that encourages shared peer learning and problem sharing.” (https://www.leadershipcentre.org.uk/artofchangemaking/theory/action-learning/) 

I found it so valuable to slow down and spend time together, reflecting and sharing, and offering each other ways to move forward, especially in this community. It feels, to me, a powerful and accepting space, and as I sit amongst the depth and experience of my peers, following the simple steps of an action learning group, I realise how much energy and courage I’m building, to come as I am. It’s far less draining to show up in this way, yet it’s a new and somewhat fragile approach for me. So, as much as I want to hurry towards the fantasy of a better version of myself, an easier one, it nonetheless requires a slow emergence. A sense of being able to contain my own safety, to know I can hold my own beautifully complex container. No one can do that for me, but a sense of a trusted community and action learning certainly can help.  

 Alongside my becoming, I’m also developing a company, a dance company, a way to share my work that makes sense to an audience. I used the action learning set to get help with my inadequacy with words. Movement, YES PLEASE! Branding and a company name, NO THANKS! But my peers put forward some excellent reflections and suggestions, inching me a bit closer to a company name and some swanky branding, and I start to feel somewhat excited about it too!  

After a quick break we come back for some creative movement with the excellent Corinne Meredith. PURE JOY! I love dancing, SO MUCH! But importantly, the most exquisite experiences I have of dancing are with others. Community.  

We bopped, and span, wriggled and arched. Expertly facilitated by Corinne Meredith. My smile grew and my body expanded. I stretched with David, reached with Matt, and found a slow floating space with Julia and Sarah. It’s this space beyond words that I find exhilarating. I’m also scared of it, this intimacy that arises from being with other bodies in a space without words, but after years of befriending this awkwardness, I know it’s worth it, for every precious moment of presence and collective expression.  

We finished with some wonderfully playful duets. I won’t forget these, both doing and watching. A group of exquisite dancers, we are, for that hour. Idiosyncrasies galore. The beauty of our individual uniqueness expressed through movement with each other. For a moment I feel at home. 

We then move on to an abundant lunch, thanks Samra, always providing delicious sustenance for our get togethers. Then it’s onto audio production, not my skill set, but what an excellent session with Steve Urquhart. I do love audio, and I’ve been thinking about audio dance experiences for visually impaired audiences. Steve’s relaxed and warm approach allows my ideas to quietly flourish in the background, as I loll and shift on the floor, in a space that gives permission to regulate my nervous system.  

We finish with a group skills mapping. There’s an excited zig zagging through the room as we place our ideas on the relevant boards. What we have to offer, what we need help with, what we want to create. Conjuring new worlds, post-it puzzles forming into projects a plenty. The potential gets me high. So much talent. So many ideas. Joyous creative community. I cannot wait to make a bejewelled extravaganza, a moving, sounding, puppeteering, costuming expression of our collective resilience and creativity. There is so much va va voom in this room. Watch out folks! We’re coming. Creativity is our human right, and our joy is an act of resistance. 

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