Translating that system to the requirements of art and professional performance as opposed to recreation and fun became the work of several decades. At first, Van Ness continued to use traditional choreography for performance, but finally in the early 1990's she discovered some keys to making art that allowed all the dancers to create.
The first of those keys was a system of integrated movement of the human body.
One of the interests of the early modern dancers of the twentieth century was in the nature of movement of the human body. Ballet, the only Western art dance of the time, requires a stylized movement that actually deforms the body. The turned out legs, stretched knees and feet, and dance on the toes are not natural movement of people and are acquired at no small cost to the dancer. Early modern dancers sought a "natural" movement .
Van Ness Dance does not claim to be "natural" movement. It does not, however, require its practitioners to deform their bodies. Most people who desired to do so and were willing to practice enough could probably acquire the basic movement skills of Van Ness Dance well enough to do it for recreation.
What characterizes Van Ness Dance is a system of movement of the entire body originating in the abdomen and lower spine. There are no steps in this dance. Raising an arm or a leg, however gracefully and beautifully, does not constitute a movement in this work. Every movement originates in the abdomen and lower spine and radiates out to the entire body. It is as though a string ran from that part of the body out to the legs and feet, trunk and head, arms and hands. When someone pulls the string, everything moves. The feet are pulled and pushed by the abdomen, the head is moved by it, the hands and fingers are pushed out and pulled back.
Moving from the abdomen allows dancers to use the breath effectively as well. The same muscles that initiate the movement also control deep abdominal breathing.
In this kind of dance, no part of the body is dead. Some contemporary dance is largely one of the arms or the legs with little movement of the rest of the body. Our dance has the entire body moving.