The counts that shaped us

I’ve been practicing contemporary dance for 30 years now. A few months ago, I had lunch with a friend I met through dance 30 years ago. She is my forever friend. I’ve danced with her almost my entire life. We no longer dance together — she lives in Switzerland, and I live in Paris — but we remain deeply connected through all those shared dance memories. During lunch, we reminisced about our dancing days with a strong sense of nostalgia. We talked about our performances, about those moments on stage, about the embodied sensations we’ve never felt anywhere else in our lives. We talked about our failures, about the way we searched within our bodies, about how we shaped them — sometimes until we cried, sometimes until we laughed or screamed. And during that lunch, she said:I didn’t instinctively ask her what was bothering her, what she found “all over the place.” My brain just exploded. Yes, we constantly talked about counts, we counted, we marked the counts.“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And one and two and three and four and five and six and seven and eight.” I had never reflected on how much accounting had shaped this part of my life. I had never reflected on how much accounting had shaped my body and our bodies together.Even today, my brain still counts every piece of music in eights. Why did I never think of numbers this way? Why did it take 15 years of an academic career and this conversation to realize how central counting has been in my life, in my passion, for 30 years? Maybe it’s because I wasn’t actually very good at counting! Sometimes behind the beat, often ahead of it because of adrenaline.Why all the frustration when we lost the counts? Why so much tension? Why did we spend hours “marking the counts”? Why did we spend hours debating something that might seem like a minor detail?For me, counts in dance have always been a kind of frame — something that holds the body, that holds space, that holds us together. They are a reference point in the music, a quiet compass. Counts make movement readable. Without them, everything can fall into chaos — gestures start to overlap, timing gets lost, the group disconnects. But with counts, everyone knows exactly when to begin. We know who leads, and where the movement is meant to go. Counts give each of us a role, a responsibility. We know when it’s our turn to step in, to take space, to carry something — for the others, and for the piece.That’s also where the pressure lies. Being ahead or behind the counts can feel like breaking the whole — like letting down the visual story we’re all trying to tell together. There’s a weight to staying in sync. A quiet tension. And sometimes, yes, that weight becomes overwhelming. Counts come with a heavy responsibility — toward both the choreographer and fellow dancers.There are moments when the counts feel too rigid — too cerebral, not enough in the body. They can pull me away from my intuition, from the rawness of the gesture, from that part of me that just wants to move freely, instinctively — with animality. And yet, I keep coming back to them. Again and again. Because in the end, it’s within that structure that something collective can take shape. Even when I resist it — I know I still need it.There are those other counts, too — an endless tally that echoes in silence. Not the counts of rhythm or choreography. These are quieter, but sometimes heavier. They creep in behind closed doors, in dressing rooms, in bathroom mirrors. They live in the back of our minds, in the pit of our stomachs, in the tension of our shoulders when the costume will not zip up.These are the counts that shape the body — or rather, that try to reshape it. The body’s own counts. Numbers that weigh, measure, compare. Do I fit the norm? Do I fall outside of it? And that little voice — always there, always watching:These are the counts we submit to. Unspoken, invisible, but deeply ingrained. The ones that train us just as much as any choreography — maybe more. The ones that push us not to move better, but to be less. To shrink. To disappear in all the wrong ways.Isn’t it strange, for a dancer — someone who needs her body, who lives through it — to end up destroying it because of some accounts? In the name of those counts, we learn to discipline ourselves. We call it dedication. But sometimes, it’s just quiet violence and control.Let’s go back to counting the music. Within that structure — that quiet discipline of counting — I find a strange kind of freedom. It may sound paradoxical, but it’s true. There, inside that precise frame, I let go. I surrender to the movement. My head keeps counting, almost on autopilot. “Five, six, seven, eight …” — quietly, in the background. And my body rests into that rhythm. It leans on it. It trusts it. The count becomes a partner. A guide. A soft, invisible hand that carries me through the choreography. In those moments, my head drops into the body. There’s no longer a separation — no more split between thought and flesh. They become one. And when that happens — the body stops thinking. It just moves. Without hesitation. Without question. There’s no performance, no trying. Just a pure, unfiltered gesture, emerging right on the count — almost in spite of me. And that’s where I feel most alive. Not in the control, but in that surrender. In this rigor that paradoxically sets me free.I feel it deeply. I’ve experienced it again and again, in my muscles, my flesh, my gut. I know — without a doubt — that from this so-called “accounting structure” can emerge an incredible intensity. Not just what’s offered to the audience, but what we, the dancers, experience from within. Counts are what bring us into communion — a kind of invisible electric current that runs through the group and grabs you from the inside. Counts are shivers. They are those goosebumps when a hand hits the floor, when our bodies hurl themselves into space, when we roll across it, when our arms brush the ground — all on the same count.And counts move the audience, too. They shape the texture of each movement — quick, slow, a sudden burst, a soft deceleration. They build tension. They offer release. They hold the breath of a moment just before it breaks open. Counts help us direct energy — to gather it, hold it, and let it go exactly where it matters most. We lean on them to find balance — between effort and pause, between eruption and stillness. That’s how counts shape emotion. That’s how they move anyone — from the inside out. Counting isn’t just about timing. It’s a form of storytelling. The shifts in tempo, the hesitations, the silences — they carve out the dramaturgy of the piece itself.Counts tell a story that would be entirely different if the body were not allowed to count. In a way, the counts make the art. Let yourself be entranced, and you will see how deeply numbers can contribute to the magic, the enchantment, the transcendence.Dance sets counts in motion — and through that motion, counts begin to tell a story. It is through movement that the numbers come alive. The counts can sweep us into a whirlwind of speed, where bodies push, strike, and embody that urgency. They give it form. They give it flesh. When bodies and counts come together, they have the power to speak of the chaos we live in — the tempo of our society, the race against time, the constant acceleration of everything. The body becomes the mouthpiece of the count. Together, they carry political messages — not through words, but through rhythm, breath, exhaustion. The intensity of the counts, their rapidity, amplify the statement being made. They support the message. Together, the bodies and the counts can become embodied (counter-) accounts.But not all counts are fast. Sometimes, the count stretches. Slows. Pauses. And in that slowing down, something shifts. We — both dancers and audience — are offered a space to come back to ourselves, to inhabit our bodies fully and silently. To listen inward. To feel. To exist. In the middle of our frantic lives, the count can become silence. Stillness. Soothing. It can be an embodied counter-narrative — the story of reconnection, of presence, of care. A story of another possible world. One where the counts do not rush us forward, but hold us exactly where we are. And maybe, in that space between the beats, we remember how to breathe.Counts are also what link bodies together in dance. The invisible thread. The shared pulse. The quiet agreement that this, right here, is when we move — together. There were times when I danced ahead of the music. When adrenaline carried me too far, too fast — and I could feel them, behind me, trying to catch up. They stretched themselves forward to reach me, to slow me down gently, to gather me back into the group — so that our bodies could become one again. Not with frustration, but with care.And there were times when I lagged behind. When my body was heavy, my thoughts scattered. And they waited. They held the rhythm just long enough for me to find my place again — to feel the current, to rejoin the flow. Not with judgment, but with patience and care.And when I fell — whether too far ahead or too far behind — they reached out their hands. Not to correct, but to connect. Because the goal was not uniformity, but togetherness.Inside the counts, and even outside them, I can feel the bodies that are struggling. The ones that drift off rhythm, the ones that fall out of sync, the ones who carry stories that do not fit neatly into an 8-count phrase. But we do not exclude them. We reach for them. We wait. We listen. We adjust. Until they find their way back — or we shift the rhythm to meet them where they are. Because in dance, as in life, the measure of a group is not how tightly it holds the beat, but how softly it holds each other.Of course, I know that not all dancers share this perspective on counting — it’s admittedly a somewhat romanticized view. I have danced without counts many times myself — and I have loved it. I have felt the pleasure of letting go of structure, of simply listening to how bodies respond to one another, how they speak without words, how they meet through instinct rather than measure. I know that some styles of dance break completely free from this so-called “accounting structure”. They invite us to move from sensation, from intuition, from raw presence. And when there is no count — when we cannot rely on a beat or a tempo — we find other ways to stay connected. We recreate the counts through our breathing, through the way our eyes meet, through the subtle tension in a shared weight or a shared silence. There is counting, even there but it is not numerical. It is a count of bodies, of breath, of presence. It is an embodied accounting.