Circle Dancing Magic

 Lesley Laslett has been dancing since she was four years old, and trained in ballet and modern dance.She has found her niche in contemporary Circle Dancing and for the last sixteen years has been teaching and choreographing circle dances, many of which have become favourites in the Circle dance repotoire.

She brings heart and soul with her dances, some are simple, others more complicated, but many are powerful and leaves you with a sense of exhilaration and inner peace.

Twenty years ago, somewhat nervously, I went to my first Circle Dance class. I did not know what to expect, but as I had danced all my life I decided to see what it was all about. I had done ballet as a child and danced in various pantomimes and shows as a teenager and was then teaching keep fit, which did involve some choreography.
I was welcomed into the group by Ian Buckley who led the Canterbury group at that time. By the third danceI just knew loved it, this was for me. Already from that moment I knew that I would teach and choreograph in the years to come. By the end of the evening I felt that I had "come home", a feeling that has remained with me until this day.The dances, beautiful music from around the world, the holding of the energy at the end of the evening, it was so special.
Gradually as music came along I built up a repertoire of dances. I listened to all kinds of music for inspiration. Since those early days I have choreographed well over 300 dances. Some have become classics like  Isoun Theos, Song for Soprano and Love Is, others have  got lost and others remain favourites with the groups I work with in Kent.

"How do you choreograph?" is a question that is often asked. I can only answer for myself, and honestly I really don't know. I only know that the music arrives and the dances "happen". I don't think  I do anything; somehow the dances come through me. It is something that comes from within. At first I would get frustrated if nothing happened and I couldn't get anything to work. But over the years I have learnt to "trust" and put the music away(which is hard) and not to push to make it work. I have learnt to wait and when the time is right, maybe months or even days later, a dance will arrive and usually there will be a reason for its arrival. It was meant for a special person or occasion. For me it is the emotion that I want to try to convey into the dance steps.
To give one example of an almost spontaneous arrival of a dance. I was on holiday in Greece and was sitting with my husband outside  by the lake one evening. Two young girls came down the steps towards the lake. Whether it was something about their relationship to each other, or the place we were in, I don't know, but they seemed to have a mythic almost ethereal quality and the moment seemed to be frozen in time. I had bought a particular CD with me and went to fetch it, played the track and the dance "The Mist" was born.
A dance that took longer  to evolve was "Touched by an Angel". It came about after I had been going through a difficult time at the same time that the comet Ikeya Zlang was in the sky. It seemed as though this light was supporting me and helping me through. It had touched me. Some dances come from immediate emotion: others are from more significant  life experiences.

"Where does the music come from?" is of course another question. There are so many sources; films or just listening all the time to whatever is around. Friends returning from holidays, especially from Greece and Turkey often bring me back CDs. I would like to particularly thank Irene Cooper from Chichester who introduced me to the music of George Dalaris who has given me so much inspiration for so many dances.
For me Circle Dancing is a special gift and I love sharing and creating dances from contempory music. There is such a wide range of music to dance to and I react to the emotion I find there.
I feel privileged to have met, shared and danced with so many wonderful people.

Lesley Laslett
 

Updated  April 2008