Movement, dance and a woman's freedom

For me, the 5Rhythms dance is a space of freedom. Not because it has rules, but precisely because it doesn't. The method was created by Gabrielle Roth, a dancer who felt the world of classical ballet was too rigid, too closed. In ballet, movements had to be “correct”, the body perfectly aligned, everything under control. But what about the movements that come from within, that aren't predetermined but spring from the heart, from emotion?

That's why she created the 5Rhythms dance – a method that doesn't demand perfection, but lets the body speak in its own language. Each rhythm – flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness – carries its own energy, story and emotion. Through them we release what weighs on us, find our own rhythm and bring to the surface what is hidden inside us.

Because how much do we learn to hide?

From an early age we're taught how to sit, how to walk, how to be pretty, but not too pretty, clever, but not too clever, gentle, but not too gentle. All with one goal – to be accepted.

When freedom becomes another cage

At a dance workshop in Paris I expected exactly that – freedom. It was led by Nawal Raad, an Iranian poet and dancer who sought escape from oppression through expression. Instead, I heard the words: “No, that's not good. That's not how it's done.” It stopped me in my tracks. How can someone who fights for freedom tell someone else they're not good enough? Maybe she wasn't even aware of how much the outside pressures had stayed inside her, how much they had become her inner voice – the one that holds back instead of setting free.

We suppress so much, adapt, change, believing that this will get us accepted. But in fact we only drift further and further from ourselves. That's why I love the 5Rhythms dance. Because there I can be in touch with myself. With everything that otherwise has no room to be expressed. Because I have to be an okay worker, an okay mother, an okay partner, an okay daughter, an okay friend.

And the harder I try to be “okay” for all of them, the less okay I am with myself. And then not with them either.

They say being okay is enough. But what does that even mean? Accepting everything I am, even when I don't meet someone's expectations. Not having to be the perfect woman, mother, friend or partner – just enough. It sounds simple, but it isn't. But when I dance, that's when it's easiest.

When expression saves a life

Expression can save a life – sometimes literally. I watched a film about Janet Frame on HRT 3. She wasn't taught to dance, but to keep quiet. She was introverted, different, and saw the world through her own eyes. And because of that she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They locked her up in a psychiatric institution. For eight years. She went through electroshock treatment, sleeplessness, loneliness. She almost had a lobotomy. And then she won a literary prize. And suddenly – she was worthy. Suddenly – she was accepted. Before the prize she was “disturbed”. After the prize – a genius.

How many times has society convinced a woman that she's not normal?

How many times was it enough simply not to fit in to be rejected? Yet Janet Frame didn't stop writing. Nawal Raad didn't stop dancing. And me? I dance. I write. I move. I express myself. Because expression can save us.

Whether through dance, through writing, through voice, through any medium or all of them together. Not for recognition, not for prizes, not for others. But because through it we become who we are.