If someone asked me what I love about dance the most, I could list off quite a few ideas. But one in particular, I never knew quite how to describe: those moments of pauses, and breaths, and silences in our bodies, and the music, when we are moved even if not actually moving. That space when our feet press into the floor ever so slowly.

What could I call it? Matrix style?

I tried capturing the concept of it in poetry, but the words would escape me. It seemed like something only someone who actually had experienced, would really grasp. And words didn’t seem sufficient enough to explain that space.

But then I would laugh, realising it’s not just in dance. It’s also IN the words, within poetry, lyrics, novels. I realised there too was that magical gap, a breath, a sigh, a whisper amongst the letters and phrases. They are not just to be seen, or thought through in the mind, but felt and heard, with the heart, and spirit.

It’s like a space that spirit grants us for a few seconds sometimes. A space that shows us and takes us into a realm of all possibilities. We come out changed, deeper, without even knowing exactly what happened. We just want to feel it and experience it, and be a part of it again.

And I remember thinking I wish there was a word for this. But how can there be for such a sparkly, stardusty concept that we can’t even hold in our hands? Could we ever find letters to capture it on paper?

I was walking back from an appointment yesterday, and I stopped in front of this cute book shop. I tend to search not just for books through the window of shops like this, but for messages, from the Universe, I guess you could say.

For a couple of months, it was a little sign on the doll house in that shop that I took in as the message I needed: It said, “Books make a big difference in even the smallest of houses.” I smiled because my apartment is definitely small, and I have a lot of books in it. I find it difficult to part with them though. And I thought that this was the Universe’s way of telling me that maybe I don’t need to, at least not anytime soon. They put magic into my surroundings and it’s okay to hang on to them a little longer.

But today, I saw this book title and author in that same window that I had never heard of before. It was called Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me, by Robert Crumb. I was a little startled at first. I thought, what kind of a message is THAT? But I also considered that actually, that’s a pretty gutsy thing to say to someone or even to announce on a book. I was kind of intrigued, and of course, couldn’t wait to look it up when I got home. And then I laughed, because I thought this could actually be very fitting right now, as a message from the Universe.

I know you through Zouk, but did you start out in Salsa like many of the Zouk dancers? What is your dance background?

Bellydance is my first dance. Before any social dances, I used to train and perform with “Leilan”, a Tribal Fusion Bellydance Troupe at Stanford University. I was first introduced to Zouk by some Bachata friends. I couldn’t get it out of my mind after a glimpse of it.

Oh wow! I didn’t know you started with Bellydance. Now it makes sense why your hip movements look so fluid and effortless.

What is it about Zouk, and/or Lambazouk, that draws you to it?

In the beginning it was the connection, the music, the free-flowing movement and the seemingly infinite possibilities of things you can do in Zouk that drew me to it. Later, as I went on to perform and teach Zouk, I liked that it makes me reflect upon body awareness, breathing, mindfulness and spirituality. It’s like an area in life where I can observe my own growth and my blind spots.

Lambazouk is similar but it has more of a wild, happy and uplifting energy that I really enjoy.