Complete Society

Building the sustainability movement through movement

In June of 2012 I went to the Greener Mind Summit for the second time, choosing to cut myself off from the digital world and spend the weekend connecting with a hundred other folks who had passion and ideas about sustainability and green business.  While there, I struggled with how to connect one of my greatest passions, freeform dance, with sustainability – holding experiments and having conversations that I don’t think really landed for my fellow participants.

It took another year of introspection and exploration, with meditation, dance and stark lessons about presence and community, for me to come up with a link between dance and sustainability that seems plausible:

Dancing together leads to connectedness and community, which leads to greater awareness of yourself in the whole of society.  That awareness leads to greater care about the sustainability of society and the planet.

So at this year’s GMS, my annual dance workshop experiment with these folks was designed around creating a dance experience that built community.  If I could design a workshop that helps anyone experience greater community through dance, and take that feeling to other dance floors in their lives, then I have another powerful way to use my passion and talents to promote sustainability.

While I haven’t gathered feedback on the experiment yet, the theory seemed to resonate with some of the dancers at GMS.

And right now, as I’m thinking about it, there’s a great connection back to my best contribution to the Presidio Graduate School community:  the semi-annual Dance-off.  People have told me that it’s the biggest community-building thing at this school full of people passionate about sustainability.

I’m excited to explore this further, so totally welcome any thoughts, ideas and references.

July 6, 2013 - Posted by Ted | Uncategorized