Why dance?

©MCD

“So, why do you dance?”

He had been asked many interview questions since his career gained an upward path, but this was by far the most intimate one. It reached right into his soul, past his life experiences, his childhood dreams and wishes, his ambitions and desires. It was the essence of who he was.

“There are so many reasons why,” he began. The emotional charge was already apparent in his eyes and in the tone of his voice that suddenly became softer and quieter.

“I dance because it makes me feel alive. Feeling my body in motion, makes me feel like I’m doing something right, that I’m allowed to experiment in every dimension with every part of my being. All a dancer needs to do is close his eyes and feel the music”.

“I dance because I’m happy, or I’m sad, or I’m angry…I feel through dance. It’s my way of expression. But it is also of healing. I always feel better after I dance”.

“I feel graceful and free when I dance,” he continued. “I feel my aura becoming lighter and brighter and this also helps me culturally and socially connect with others. I feel I am becoming a better person when I dance. And I like that version of me”.

“Dancing is also a way to escape everything that is troubling your mind at the moment. It’s great therapy for the mind and it certainly keeps you active and fit. It is a fun way to exercise and offers many more benefits that are first apparent. All you need to do is try it for yourself and you’ll be convinced”.

The interviewer stared straight into his eyes. She had never received such an honest and long response before.

And, of course, she was now eager for her first dance lesson.  

Believing in a dream

©Sandra Crook

“Close your eyes and hold on to my hand”. Her ballroom dress fluttering in the light evening breeze. She was prepared for a royal evening. That’s was what her prince had promised. They were middle-class working people; two youngsters who met thanks to a common hobby. Dancing was their passion and what brought them closer together.

She had told him many times of her desire to attend a royal ball, but she never believed it would happen so soon. He took her early, so she could enjoy the springtime in the gardens, together with a romantic walk across the lake.

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

The Elegance of Grace

She grew up in a bedroom that was as big as some apartments she later saw during her rent-hunting period. She had always thought that was the norm. That all children were brought up in loving families that looked after their every need and sacrificed (themselves) for their own welfare. Finding out the truth hurt.

Elegance, her mother had always told Grace, was something that you learnt to impose on yourself to the extent that it came out as natural. It was like the pain a dancer felt, but to the audience it seemed like blissful gliding. That was the essence of elegance. To appear to have everything under control, without worries, stress or agony. It was not easy.

As she grew up, Grace lost her temper a lot. She was often nervous, allowing her agitation and fear to overcome her. Uncertainty did not fare well with her. She wanted things to be organised so that she could feel that she had the ability to impose some order in the chaos around her. But that wasn’t always possible.

It was only when she returned to ballet that she remembered. It reminded her that not everything had to be forced. Some things needed calm and patience to work out well and everything took time. It all fell into place at the right moment with the proper strain. The elegance was knowing how to acknowledge that and be prepared for when that moment arrived.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Elegance

Lost in a moment

He stood there silent, scintillating under the night sky as the sweat droplets emerged on his forehead. His mouth had run dry and the alcohol he was consuming did not really help. He felt his heart beat faster as the adrenaline pumped his body rhythm up four beats. His gaze was fixed. On her.

She was a girl who had managed to capture his interest since the first moment he laid eyes on her. That moment when he accidentally fell right onto her while they were both heading from different directions to the bar. It was a week since and he had still to garner the courage to talk to her.

Her long golden brown curls swayed in the night air as she moved along the beat of the music that blasted from the club’s loudspeakers. He was mesmerized and petrified at the same time. He could see that men around the club had been imprisoned by her. By her looks. By her soft treading along the dance floor. By the way she smiled and her eyes sparkled. By how she seemed so carefree.

People need that. That feeling of being somewhere and forgetting everything else. Being lost in that very moment. In that dance. In that conversation. In those eyes staring at you while the world around you disappears.

But, like everything in life, to gain something you must also give something back. It takes courage to put yourself out there. But once you do, you’ll probably wonder why you hadn’t been as bold sooner.

Teaching how to disassemble the chaos

She screamed something incomprehensible, slammed her hands on the table, sturdily got up and left the room. If there were a door, she would have slammed it in anger.

He remained staring at the empty seat. Motionless. Unreactive. He had become accustomed to such bursts of anxiety, as he called them. He knew that she would soon blow off steam and come to realise that he was right all along. But that was something she should do on her own. She needed the space to calm down and process it all. He knew she could do more. She just had to believe it too.

She soon returned embarrassed but full of thirst for more. He had succeeded in awakening her desire to improve. To reach the potential he had seen in her from the very first day.

She loved ice-skating. It was the perfect combination of dance, expression and imagination. And on the ice, she felt more liberated than ever. It brought some tranquility to her otherwise chaotic life. Because no matter what went on at home, during her busy schedule, or in the world in general, on that ice rink she forgot it all, and got lost in the music, allowing it to drift her away, into a parallel universe, a utopia.

She was a smart girl, craving knowledge, demonstrating a general interest in everything that surrounds us, and with a fantasy as large and open as her heart.  She generally respected her teachers, especially those who inspired her and taught her to love learning. Those who showed her where to look, but left her to see things for herself. The ones who taught her to be critical of everything she heard, and, no matter what, to always try and improve; to compete, not with others, but with herself.

But the one who she loved the most was her ice-skating teacher. He was the once who acted as a mentor, a guide, a psychotherapist, a friend, a family member. He was so much more than a teacher and that is why she could so freely unleash every emotion in front of him. Because she knew he would understand. And he would support her either way.

Like Albert Einstein had said, “it is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge”. Because it is a fact that the (right) teachers are the ones who create all other professions, the ones who inspire you to be the best you can be, and to find some order in the chaos that is our world.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Chaos

Curvy Dancer

Once the music began, she could feel the notes diffuse into her veins and flow into her system. Her entire body was taken over by the rhythm and all she could do was surrender to the melody. Her curves began to sway and she was soon prancing about like a thick elastic band. Melissa did not care she was curvy and did not fit into the stereotypes. She loved to dance and that was all.

Melissa was introduced to dancing like most little girls, through a tutu and pointes. She was a chubby little ballerina, but was the best in her class, something most people did not anticipate. Not even her own mother who had registered Melissa for dancing classes in the first place as a form of exercise and in the hope that the curves that had taken form early on would ‘straighten’.

The curves did not disappear. But Melissa’s love for dance grew.

After ballet, she underwent a period of revolution and reaction – she entered the world of hip-hop and breakdance and stunned onlookers with the elasticity of her body.

As she matured, and felt young men’s gaze on her, Melissa turned to contemporary dance, as a way of expressing what she could not utter. She got lost in the unscripted, abstract movements that took her mind off the challenges of adulthood and for that brief time made her carefree and wispy.

As she gathered experiences and passed through heartbreaks and the trials of relationships, Melissa moved onto other forms of dance – ballroom granted her grace and elegance, while Latin gave her room for expression, sassiness and vivacity.

But it was when she got acquainted with the tango that Melissa felt complete. When she met a dancing partner, who later became one for life; when she moved her feet to the rhythm with her eyes closed, succumbing to the passion and emotions the dance awakened within her. It was then that she felt most alive. When she danced, blocking out everyone and everything else. When she took off her dancing shoes with a revived sense of optimism that everything would be OK. All she had to do was believe it and dance to the rhythm in her heart.

 

N.B. April 29 is International Dance Day – a relevant article on the benefits of dance can be found here.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Curve

The dangers of living on the edge

It’s not what you think. The danger of living on the edge is not that you’ll stumble and fall over. No. It’s that once you step back, everything will seem too dull.

Because, let’s face it, we all need that adrenaline rush from time to time. That feeling of excitement you get when you’re doing something you’re passionate about. Or when you’re racing against time to reach a deadline. Or even when you’re simply daydreaming about all the things you are determined to soon accomplish.

It’s a great feeling to have this constant buzz in your veins. To feel you heart pumping fast and to be happy about being so…well, “on-edge”. For some, it is a way of life. To not have time to be bored. To not even have time to consider the fact that 24 hours in a day are not enough. For others, it is just too much going on.

But for those who are used to being constantly engaged with stuff to do, with emotions, and with never-ending obligations/passions, living “on-edge” is routine.

The danger comes when you suddenly find yourself forced to step back and take a deep breath. When a cold or an illness overpowers you. When you run out of so many things to do (it does happen). Or when you simply allow yourself to lie on the coach and relax, doing absolutely nothing. Having spent days and months with little sleep and in constant motion, this is when the danger becomes more evident. It comes in the notion of boredom. Because that is what happens.

It is like when you go dancing for five nights in a row. That “happy feet syndrome” becomes part of who you are, and you are addicted to swaying as soon as music sounds. When the music stops and you have to sit down, it all seems too boring for you.

The same applies to when you are running. You run through parks, avenues, busy streets and neighborhoods; observing people, animals and noises. But when you stop, walking seems just so…dull.

It is dangerous to live a life in constant agitation. But it is equally hazardous to live one which you don’t enjoy to the fullest. The key is to find the right balance between the two. To know when to run and when to walk, when to dance and when to sit, when to stress out and when to relax.