There are things about dance that I have always needed to experience up close: the look in a student’s eyes, a hand guiding a movement, the breath of a group before beginning, or that particular energy that appears when people share the same space… because dance travels too.

For many years, that physical closeness was an essential part of the way I taught. So when the pandemic moved my classes onto a screen, I found myself asking a question I had never considered before:

What remains of dance when we can no longer share the same space?

At first, I had my doubts. Teaching dance is not simply about explaining movements. There is a physical, human and relational dimension that has always been essential to me.

But then women from different places began to join my classes. First from different parts of Spain, and later from other countries. Women practising from their homes who, despite the distance, gradually became part of the way I taught and understood dance.

And little by little, I discovered something that is still an important part of my work today: presence can travel too.

We can meet through movement, learn from different places and share a practice even when our bodies are separated by thousands of kilometres.

That experience also changed the way I understood online teaching. I didn’t want to simply transfer a studio class onto a screen. I wanted to create a space where I could accompany the practice, share tools and continue cultivating dance from wherever each woman was in her life.

This is also part of what lies behind IndOriental®: a way of understanding dance shaped by many years of learning in India, Rajasthan, Oriental and contemporary dance, together with breath, musicality, expression and presence.

Because for me, learning to dance is not only about learning a sequence. It is about listening to the music, inhabiting the body, breathing, developing presence and allowing what we learn to slowly become our own.

And this becomes even more meaningful when life changes.

Sometimes we stop dancing because our schedules, work, city or responsibilities change. And yet, we still miss how we felt when we danced.

Perhaps we don’t need to give up dance. Perhaps we need to find another way back to it.

That is one of the things I value most about teaching online today: dance can travel to wherever you are and remain part of your life, even when you cannot physically be in a studio every week.

Because dance changed its place.

The connection remained.

If you also miss dancing, perhaps this is a good moment to give it a place in your life again.

¿wanna try?

Elizabeth Medina