FULL ENGAGEMENT
This is one of the original elements of GRACE and it is one of the most enduring and effective focuses to use at any time, whether in performance or practice.
What does it mean to fully engage the body? When you engage your hand, for instance, you contract all the muscles in your wrist, palm and fingers. You make your hand expressive. Full body engagement means doing that across your entire body. Another way to think of it is to become alert with all of you. This includes, quite significantly, things like your facial expression and your personality presence.
When you are engaged, you are, by definition, present. Living in the here and now. As Ram Dass famously said: "Be Here Now". This, in and of itself, is an amazing thing to be able to do while performing. It takes your performance and ratchets it up several notches. When you are fully engaged physically, you are as well mentally so you feel the presence of the audience. It is an immediate and potentially electrifying experience. In my own experience, focusing on being fully engaged has resulted in performances which have more depth and meaning, as well as being physically formed in a way I find very satisfying as an artist.
When you are engaged, you are, by definition, present. Living in the here and now. As Ram Dass famously said: "Be Here Now". This, in and of itself, is an amazing thing to be able to do while performing. It takes your performance and ratchets it up several notches. When you are fully engaged physically, you are as well mentally so you feel the presence of the audience. It is an immediate and potentially electrifying experience. In my own experience, focusing on being fully engaged has resulted in performances which have more depth and meaning, as well as being physically formed in a way I find very satisfying as an artist.
As humans, we strive to be as unengaged as possible as much of the time as possible.
My metaphor regarding the human condition: We work all our lives long until the age of 65 when we dream of what: doing nothing! Our idea of heaven is being slumped on a lounge chair on a beach in Hawaii and being served tropical cocktails. In reality, it is terrible for yourself. Doing nothing is many people's ideal. It is incredibly dangerous. Especially if you are older.
So it is engrained in many people's thoughts that slumping is fine to do when you are sitting in a chair or leaning against the wall. Inactivity is practically built into our national psyche.
Think instead that being fully engaged is a much better default. It's a lot more fun and it has some real beneficial effects as you will soon see.
So it is engrained in many people's thoughts that slumping is fine to do when you are sitting in a chair or leaning against the wall. Inactivity is practically built into our national psyche.
Think instead that being fully engaged is a much better default. It's a lot more fun and it has some real beneficial effects as you will soon see.
As performers, we are often only partially engaged.
- When we move, there is always something we are thinking about: When we walk, we try to roll through our feet and land with our heel touching first. When we do something challenging, we engage our core to protect our lower back. When we turn, we focus our eyes on a single spot in order to maintain our balance. Take any dance class and you find out something new to think about as you move. It's not too often that you put all the advice together but this concept actually does just that.
- Our dance focus often accentuates particular body parts: One part of the body takes predominance, perhaps exhibiting extra energy or emotional impact. Perhaps it's the part of the body we are particularly conscious about because of a new lesson, or an injury. Perhaps we are having trouble with one ankle and have to be particularly focused on using it correctly. Or maybe we give more impact to the parts of our dance expression that we are particularly proud of.
- We loose awareness of neglected or unused parts of the body: Belly dance is a particular culprit because of all the stationary positioning we use when highlighting isolations, for instance. The lower part of the body often gets less attention and in fact may not move at all. We are not fully engaged.
- We drop our consciousness during transitions: We drop our performance personna between combinations, or at the beginning or end of our set, or when we end one piece and begin another. You would be amazed at how much your dance can be transformed if you maintain your performance posture. It adds energy and dynamics.
Never drop your stage persona while performing.
Qualities of being fully engaged:
Try the following ideas to feel what happens to your body:
- When you engage a part of your body, it enlivens it. The muscles stretch to be expressive. The joints benefit.
- As one part of your body engages, adjacent areas do as well. So if you think of engaging your feet, your legs, core and back and ultimately your arms do as well. It all happens in sequence.
- As alluded to above, when you are physically engaged, the rest of your being goes through the same thing as well. So your expression of your personality on stage takes on new meaning. This to me is the essence of stage presence. It can be taught!
- Full engagement is energizing.
Some fantastic tips:
Theory of the lesser limb:
Published July 20, 2026.