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Salford

Dances for discovery – part 1

Dancer: Sarie

Dance Location: Usually in studios, boxy rooms with little furniture

This is a dance that... I do when I'm not only a dancer.

We have been dancing it for about five years but today we're remembering the first time.

Scott is a poet and I'm a dancer but in this piece both of us enter as writers and movers. That means I can't show up with the things that come easily to me through training so I have to dig beyond my comfort zone.

Most of the time when we dance no-one is watching us, but for our first dance we had mirrors on two walls so we were watching ourselves and each other. It's not to music now, but it was to begin with: ambient electronic.

The dance sits in my hands, I find myself using my hands in really clear and decided ways, and at the base of my neck - where I feel the connection between my thoughts and my impetus to move. And it smells like Scott. That's not a bad thing, it's a nice thing in fact, I know his smell now in the same way you would with your partner or your best friend.

This dance makes me feel all sorts of stuff. Safe and vulnerable. Optimistic and positive. Grateful, but also this sense of urgency to keep pushing to find new things in it and keep it alive.