"My biggest fear is getting cold and not having a cardigan"

Yes, it sounds like a quote from someone on Big Brother but was in fact me last weekend. I was fussing around the room getting my costume bag ready for our gig later that night, as I said it one of the girls from my dance company burst out laughing. And that is when I realised that company is not just nice, it's essential. As a performer I have been working alone for nearly 10 years now. I don't even think about my routine of getting made up, putting my bag together, checking the address and shooting off to a gig - where I stand alone waiting for my invariably late performance. It has become quite predictable, except of course for the moment when I step on stage, or into a room, and my dancing and my smile take over.

Yet, here were two girls for whom the experience was totally new, putting on their make up for the first time, giggling and bubbling with excitement. And not only that, here was a big mirror for me, to show me how to laugh at my eccentricities and to enjoy the process, even the preparation, after all you can when you are all in it together. We left the house, me with cardigan under arm, and piled into the car to pick up my drummer from the station, where he had been "waiting 45 minutes, but really no problem" and then it was straight for the East End, with Ken (the Satellite Navigator) calling out ambiguous directions.

It was nice to have a full car, and my car is a Micra so it really was full, my hand knocking on a drum as I changed gear, the girls squashed up against their costume bags as they chatted and thrilled. With this many people around you it is much easier to get a sense of what you have achieved, how others have been influenced and inspired to take part and how we were bringing this gift, this swirl of energies to a party somewhere in E1, like an explosion of joy. There is an anarchical quality to this that I love, shaking up a previously staid event and getting people bouncing up from their chairs, naturally, not forcefully. For many years I sat in grey offices wanting to burst out of my chair and get everyone moving and here we were doing just that. There is something very enticing and hynotic about this ancient dance form, the irresistable rhythms, the openness and joy of the dancer, who herself is enjoying moving to the music and interpreting it with her body - sexy, feminine and empowered.

You can't fight it, man or woman, even the most sourfaced non-participative people get a little bit fluffed up around the edges. It is acccepting of everyone, in particular the older members of parties often are most moved to dance, or those who are very shy, or never usually dance. I love dancing with the grandparents, they have an innate respect for dance, whether they take your arm and dance 1940s style, as a war veteran wearing his medals once did with me at the Royal Festival Hall, to an entranced audience, or whether they throw their stick aside, grab a napkin and dance in their country's national style. For them dance has a cultural place, is not a joke or an embarassment. They are not afraid to move.

As it happened it was a fairly sombre crowd, the space was big and the energy diffuse, people had appearances to keep up, but my entourage (well 2) cheeky dancers carried on sparkling like roman candles and working the space fearlessly, revelling in their own star quality (they had a video camera following them around). They kept my spirits up and we sprinkled some of our magic dust - some over people and some onto the floor when the people, too afraid to accept, moved away.

And this I suppose is a culmination of a plan I made subconsciously years ago as I tore myself away from my teacher's retreat centre in the mountains, if I was going to go back to London, I was going to bring the mountain to the people. And that it seems, is what I did.