The Secret of "Bim Bim Bim"
Where Dance and Poetry Meet in Creative Flow
by Yara Al Khoury
Last summer, I spent three days camping with a beautiful community of movers at a dance and somatics camp. The camp came shortly after I’d made the abrupt decision to let go of a heavy presence occupying my life—one that had blocked me and made me unhappy without my realizing it. The campers’ atmosphere of love and care let me release myself into a judgment-free space. I immersed myself fully in the somatic experience.
On the last day, we were having a technical class. I was struggling to memorize a certain sequence, but I was unbothered. The trainer left the class for a moment, and the participants were scattered around the historic building we were in. I looked up and saw the expansive white floor inviting me to jump in. A feeling of fear and excitement overwhelmed me as I threw myself into the empty space—effortlessly twirling, jumping, smiling from my heart—unruffled by the weight of conscious decisions. Yet I had total control over my body, and I felt the joy of meeting a self-induced challenge.
I finished my journey and returned to where I’d been standing. I looked at my two friends next to me. One gave me an emotional hug, and it wasn’t until the other said, “Yara, you were flying, you left the room,” that I realized this moment would forever change how I experienced dance.
After this, I noticed a clear difference in my movement: something flowed, as if a faucet had been opened. I started noticing elements that usually constrict me and gave myself a small exercise: consciously letting go of at least one thing that holds me back or no longer serves me.
Dance as an embodied practice has the power to merge materiality and representation; ridding oneself of judgment is essential to embodying movement and finding flow. Movement creates its own space, time, and force; the dance unfolds within the dancer’s body. We sometimes call it grace, but what creates this state of being?
Almost like a poem, this quality of performance can surpass the intellectual mind and touch us on a deeper, intuitive level, evoking emotions beyond intellectual curiosity.
“...when you write, your words must go like this: bim bim bim… each line must be full of a delicious little juicy flavor... they must be full of power... they must make you like to turn the page.” Charles Bukowski, in his drunken brilliance, distilled flow into an awkwardly perfect phrase: “bim bim bim.”
When I structure a sequence of movement in the studio, I lean into finding a rhythm, a pattern of breath (with or without music). This repetition of breath is what lets me commit to a sequence or abandon it. As with poetry, if the rhythm makes sense, it flows.
When a dancer is moving in flow, their flow is undeniable, whether the movement is complex or simple.
How is it that flow is felt internally, within the body, and visible to an outside observer?
I like to think about it through the lens of writing a poem—as an intensely internal process that yearns for connection with a listener.
When asked what human purpose does poetry serve in our time, American poet Stanley Kunitz responded that: "Poetry is most deeply concerned with telling us what it feels like to be alive at any given moment, how people lived and responded to experience, that Poets are the most intimate witnesses of what it means to be human.” He framed poetry as collective testimony that shapes a century’s tone, later contextualizing it through mythology—a communal act relying on society’s transmission of essential knowledge.
Last year, I was part of a site-specific performance with eight other dancers. During one rehearsal, we reached a moment when the whole group shook together, shrinking into a tight formation. Typically, exhaustion made this section falter, but this time, the dance built seamlessly to that climax. We felt a tangible connection, and our shaking rhythms nearly synced. The choreographer called it a ‘remarkable moment’—visible even from the outside.
Can the flow of embodied experiences change how we think about poetry? I still ponder the relationship between movement and poetry—how flow shapes both improvisation and writing. Perhaps it really is just this: “Bim bim bim”—rhythm and flow.
Yara Al Khoury – an actress and writer, she first discovered movement through theater and developed her skills in physical theater and contemporary dance as performer and creator. Her work explores the dialectic between movement and written text—particularly poetry.