Alchemie 2012
Tango Alchemie Elemental
This year each day is dedicated to the elements — Fire, Water, Air/Ether, New Earth.
We will join with indigenous people around the world June 21-24 in increasing the healing vibration of connection.
The festival will be a 4 day Medicine Wheel, made up of the four directions, the four elements of the material/horizontal plane. The 5th element, the 5th direction is the center- the tree of life. Its uprightness, its roots and bows make the vertical axis. Our bodies in the embrace, with the opposite chakras (man/woman) become that axis when we enter the center. We become the vertical axis, the 6 (earth) and 7 (heaven), uniting what is above with what is below.
The purpose of Alchemie is to have a great time, and raise the vibration of all who participate. It is also to deepen the art of what we do- the alchemy of connection and unification. This year, the bridge/threshold/transition 2012, we dance not only for ourselves and for each other, but for the earth as well.
Sacred Geometry of the Dance — The Circle and the Line
Many would say that what is most important in tango is what is most important in life itself- connection. In a physical and energetic sense it can be said that the tango connection is a round connection. We connect to one another in the circle of the embrace, to the physical sphere of our own bodies, the collective body of the couple, and to the circular space of the milonga itself. We use a circular lead- a concave curve to communicate steps, a convex curve to communicate changes of weight, and counter- circular motion in initiating changes of direction.
Companion to the linear step/walk, the circle imbues every aspect of the dance. It is a shared respiration- inhale and exhale of opposites:
- Invitation: Yang/ masculine/ mercury
- Reception: Yin/ feminine/ sulphur
- Movement: Yang/ masculine/ mercury
- Accompaniment: Yin/ feminine/ sulphur
The Medicine Wheel
This year Alchemie will be dedicated to uniting with the Elements. The festival will be structured as a Medicine Wheel, with the 4 nights dedicated to one element/direction each.
The Medicine Wheel is the great Hopi tool for personal, community and universal healing. Within it one walks to and communicates with the 4 inner elements (the Child, the Woman, the Man and the Soul) in order to bring them into balance within oneself. The greater teaching of the medicine wheel is about the evolution of humanity. Having passed through the era, or world, belonging to the Soul, the Child, and the Woman, we are now in the 4th world, the time of the White Man in the North. The medicine of the man is integrated intellect as wisdom, and his poison is intellect separated from the heart.
The Hopi prophecy says that eventually all tribes will eventually walk out of the North, back toward the center. No Time occurs when we step out of the horizontal plane, of conditionality/reactivity toward the vertical axis, the Chinupa, the Tree of Life.
When we reach the center, we stand on the 5 (the center point of the 4 pointed circle) and our body, our own axis, becomes both the 6 (at the root/feet) and the 7 (crown). We ourselves become united with the Mother (earth) and Great Spirit (sky) and come into our roles as the vertical axis, the connection, the middle way between heaven and earth.