Sacred Circle Dancing
with Melly Bock
Please call for
October-December 2010
dance dates and times
Easy to learn - for all ages, teens through elders
46 Franklin Street
Leominster, MA
978-424-1482
My name is Melly Bock. I’m a dancer, grandmother, wife and registered nurse.
As a child and young woman, dance and movement always expressed my strongest feelings, negative and positive. In my early fifties however, dancing itself saddened me because it exaggerated my reduced strength and lessened endurance. My flexibility was being replaced by stiffness. It was no longer possible for me to feel a sense of soaring when I jumped up. I tired quickly.
My introduction to Circle Dancing was on a December night, in a church. This hall was illuminated by sparkling holiday lights. There were about 35 people in the room - Men, women, old, young. Our instructor was a middle-aged woman. She invited us to form a circle, and told us that the dances we would learn were from the traditions of many countries. She also said that it would be more in the spirit of Circle Dancing to have a good time than to get the steps precisely right.
The music was profoundly moving. I loved the sense of being connected with everyone in the circle. It was exhilarating to dance with grandparents and teenagers, together. Our teacher encouraged us to enter a period of silence after each dance. I was suffused with a sense of peace during these opportunities to observe the effects of each dance within my body.
The simplicity of the dances, the beauty of the music and the connectedness with all of the members of the circle restored the joy and elation dancing gave me as a younger woman.
For me, Circle Dancing is sacred. I mean this in the broadest and most universal sense. It's not just my experience. For example, one, recent first-timer in a circle I was facilitating said, "I feel unity with all the dancers in the group.” For many of us, this connection extends to the many cultures from which the music and dances come. When we move in a circle, every person is visible to every other, and the sense of community is palpable and immediate.
As soon as I could walk, I began dancing. As a little girl I was always skipping and running, often in a circle. I loved the freedom and happiness of moving my body and expressing my feelings. There was always a lot of different kinds of music playing in our house in Brooklyn and the New York Catskill Mountains, where my parents took their own folk dance vacations. I danced to all of it, just about all of the time.
My aunt Buddy took me on the subway to dance classes when I was five. I first danced in a circle at weddings, the Hora from Israel and Miserlou from Greece. In 1960, I went to Israel and learned the authentic, early folk dances from that country. Returning home the following year, I continued performing Arab, Greek and Israeli dances.
I expressed everything that happened in my life through dance - all the joy and pain. And through this, I discovered emotions and states of consciousness that filled me with a sense of wonder, creativity, and profound pleasure.
Many people love circle dancing as a collective, synergistic experience. This form of movement heals and rejuvenates us and restores our ability to share ourselves with others. We often experience the unique qualities of the people and cultures of each dance. At times, it’s like dancing with the whole world.
At 67 years of age, circle dancing reconnects me with my childhood – with the deep joy of movement, running, skipping, dancing. I'm passionate about learning and teaching the Circle Dances from so many countries and cultures. I want to dance with everyone in the world, as I experience all of us to be in the same circle.