The most awe-inspiring traits we share as mammals is the capacity to go beyond our self-interest for the benefit of others. There is empathy in our genes. We've heard the stories, teared up at the YouTubes: a lioness adopts an abandoned newborn chimp, elephants hold elaborate funeral rituals and bury their dead, dolphins guide a stranded whale back to sea, a dog lays her body over a lost and freezing child until help arrives. Evolutionary biologists are realizing that survival of the kindest is where our ultimate salvation lies.

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Many of us have worked hard to feel, express, and integrate our challenging emotions --sadness, fear, rage, jealousy, shame. We may tell ourselves to see beauty, be generous or have faith, but until we feel it in the cells of our own being, it can be forced or fake; the classic spiritual bypass.  How do we learn to purposely embody our more transcendent feelings of selflessness, generosity, compassion, patience, serenity, unity, harmony?

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In Open Floor Movement Practice, we learn to cultivate the full spectrum of our complex emotional world. As dancers, reaching a state of bliss and goodness beyond ourselves doesn't have to be an elusive touch of grace, a happy accident. In Aiming High, we learn to deliberately access the sublime, while Feet on the Ground ensures we do not deny our other emotions to get there.

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