Forming bonds with the world

Many people have been asked why they do something one time or another. Artists contemplate this prompt often, as the monetary incentive idolized by society is absent in their craft. After spending time grasping for a profound or revolutionary response that satisfies others, one could find themselves drawing a blank. Although deeper aspects of the passion may exist, the answer to this question can also be simple. 

“[Dance] is the best way I know to be in the world,” said Mary Carbonara.

Carbonara has been teaching dance since 1991. Although part of her attraction to the art form comes from the movement and connection within her own body, she also finds a unique appeal to the relationship between her and others who share her passion. Being a dance teacher allows her to explore a balance of the two while teaching and learning from others.

“I’m just not comfortable in my skin unless I’m moving a certain amount. I’m not comfortable in my skin unless I’m having a meaningful interaction with someone over something that I care about. That’s what teaching [dance] is for me,” Carbonara said. “It’s as logical to me as knowing that if I don’t get to bed by 10 o’clock at night, I’m going to feel miserable in the morning.”

Although Carbonara feels such a strong attachment to her art, society still presents challenges that she has to overcome.

“Dance is horrendously underpaid compared to more white-collar work,” Carbonara said.

She believes, however, that it is worth the sacrifice of financial satisfaction in favor of the self-benefit she receives from dance.

“I know that for the brief period where I was only working in the office, as much as it had its own rewards, I was deeply unhappy; probably clinically depressed. [I was] feeling like I was very out of place. It took a while, but over the years, I’ve figured out how to create that balance,” Carbonara said. “I teach, so I’m in the studio, frequently watching teachers, teaching teachers, and then teaching my own students. I’m also at a desk a lot, scheduling, fundraising, and emailing.”

Across her 30 years of teaching dance, Carbonara has experienced many different forms of the craft.  She has danced on the hard studio floors and the uneven concrete of Golden Gate Park. She has been a student and a teacher of dance to children and adults. 

“I had my own dance company for a while, and teaching [was] all I was doing. It was all physical. I was teaching all over the Bay Area, and I was choreographing and presenting my work. It was a 24/7 movement. And it was glorious, wonderful, exhausting, hard, and poorly paid. I feel like I’ve gone through a couple of different lives when it comes to dance and how it’s shaped me,” Carbonara said. 

Carbonara has taught in many different environments and dances for hours a day, allowing her to thoroughly explore the sensation felt from the art form.

“I [dance] because of how it makes me feel physically and how it makes me feel connected. It makes my brain, body, and nervous system feel connected,” Carbonara said. “When I’m dancing, the first thing I experience when I start moving is my sense of stability and strength. And then after that, the next thing I experience is my range of motion. I know when I feel solid, and then I know when I can reach off that solid ground. And it’s when both of those things connect [that] I feel like I can start moving expressively.”

According to Harvard Medical School different regions of the brain are activated when one dances. This includes the motor cortex, somatosensory cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum, each controlling and coordinating a different part of the body. 

Dance can also be used to help navigate difficult situations in life and oneself. The art form encourages one to think more deeply about their relationship with the world and can provide a new sense of comfort or understanding.

“I’m not necessarily trying to convince you of anything when I [choreograph] dances. For example, one of the early pieces I made was a piece called Deflecting Faith. I was raised in a religious household, but I myself never felt connected to religion. And I found myself sometimes worrying about that. Sometimes, [I was] embracing my religion, and sometimes [I was] consciously deciding not to think about it. I would just put it aside,” Carbonara said. “And so I decided to make a piece about how it feels to put it aside. What does it mean when that sensation, those thoughts, the beliefs, [and] the questions are really close at hand, but you’ve chosen not to go into them? [It] kind of calmed me down about feeling conflicted.”

Although some believe that dancing is purely for show, Carbonara believes the lessons learned along the way are just as, if not more, important. Dance brings a whole new experience and can expose people to new discoveries about themselves and their relationship with the world around them.

“You want [the students] to understand how to try things and how to experience different things. You might be teaching a kid how to do turns because you want them to be able to master a pirouette like a ballerina. But you also want them to do turns so that they can experience the wild and chaotic joy of being dizzy and then suddenly not being dizzy again. You want them to be able to master their balance even when they can’t see where they are. It’s always about those other lessons, as far as I’m concerned. It’s a way of processing the world,” Carbonara said.

Carbonara values the relationships she has with her students, and she also emphasizes the unique energy and attitude young people bring to dance.

“I [remember I] was a teenager. I was 13 to 16. And my experience of those years is that you change a lot every year. You become a little bit more clear about what you like, what you don’t like, how you think, what you want to say, how you want to share things about yourself, and how you see the world. And so I think for a teacher to work with a student for that period of time, you can witness a lot of transformation,” Carbonara said. “If a child begins to dance, they can get adults to dance, and that’s a really lovely, beautiful thing to see. I think young people dance with music when [they’re] feeling silly and goofy, lazy, or creative. I think with little kids, it is just natural and intuitive.”

Despite Carbonara being the dance teacher, she is still able to learn from her students every time she teaches. After spreading her passion for the art form to new people, Carbonara enjoys finding something in return.

“That’s another reason that I teach: it’s the best front-row seat you could possibly buy. You get to see people performing, trying things, wiping out sometimes, doing something they never thought they could do, [or] doing something twice as well as they ever could have imagined,” Carbonara said. “In class and the safe environment of the studio, you can watch people learn, watch people surprise themselves, and watch people entertain each other. It is absolutely one of the best ways to see dance, in my opinion. After I finish teaching, I just sit, and I watch.”