Here we go...


I have just compiled a nia routine for the first time, bringing together some of my favorite dances from other people's nia routines. I offer my thanks to the choreographers and musicians whose work I'm celebrating and carrying forward through our weekly sessions at the False Creek Community Centre in Vancouver. 

The new routine came out of the darkest moment of the year in this northern part of the world. It will be our focus as we navigate the long emergence from the winter solstice to the spring equinox.

This is a winter like no other. 

Covid is hanging on like a bad dream. 

Two massively costly and destructive wars are underway, and gang misrule is growing in other parts of the world. 

The world economy is imploding, with disrupted supply chains that never met most people's needs in the first place.  

Climate change is starting to be perceptible, even to doubters. New weather phenomena appearing constantly. Fires and floods, droughts and hurricanes, record heat and record cold. It hurts some more than others.  Here we're buried under billows of soft snow and in Zimbabwe elephants are dying out in a relentless drought, water holes gone, nothing to drink but mud.

In the face of all this, we have to stay focused. We have to acknowledge the pain, the life-altering danger of others, and commit to reaching out and helping. 

At the same time we have to acknowledge the gift of moments of joy in our own lives. Joy is real. Joy is as real as suffering. And joy is the soul of nia dancing.

Joy, teamed up with empathy, gives us something to build on. Moments of joy give us the strength and patience and vision to step up and pitch in as we set about to heal the world in the days and years to come.

Thank you, Nikki McClure

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