For two different reasons :

• The first one is the one already mentioned: they are used to preserve and transmit a great knowledge that encompasses the atoms as the planets:” As above, so below”. They represent certain laws that govern the universe and thus, the lives of human being
• The second one is the inner development of those who participate in them

Our sleep and slavery express themselves in the automatism and limitations of our feelings and thoughts, these being closely bound up with the automatism of our movements and postures. This is a vicious circle. Vice versa our usual limited vocabulary of movements will keep us within the confinements of a restrictive routine like way of feeling, seeing life, thinking. We do not realize how intimately connected together are our 3 functions, moving, emotional and mental. They depend one upon the other. They result one from an other. One does not change without others changing too. The attitude of our body is the outer reflection of our emotions and thoughts. An emotional change such as a sudden relief of worry will immediately affect our way of standing, the depth of our breathing, the movements in our eyes etc…

Taking new unusual positions enables us to observe ourselves differently from the way it is possible in usual conditions. And the Gurdjieff Dances break the cycle of automatism by introducing non-habitual movements and sequences.

To do is easy, but to be present to what we are doing is something else! The path is not about doing, but about being awakened to what we are doing. It is about feeling the reality of what we are doing. Because we are not aware of the reality of what we are doing, we need others’ attention. The one who brings awareness to himself has this inner feeling of joy anyway, because he is in contact with his own life .With presence to oneself, to others , the most simple gesture becomes sacred

So it depends on the inner state with which we are acting. Our movement can be a tool for presence or an escape from ourselves. Movements are becoming a sacred art, when we are at the search of the sacred, and when we approach the movements with the recognition that they are sacred. Otherwise, even the most sacred movements are becoming mundane, and sadly ordinary… Human being has in himself this great capacity of transformation, and then everything becomes possible, each moment