I praise the dance,
for it frees people from the heaviness of matter
and binds the isolated to community.
I praise the dance, which demands everything:
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.
Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,
who are in constant danger of becoming all brain,
will, or feeling.
Dancing demands a whole person,
one who is firmly anchored in the center of his life,
who is not obsessed by lust for people and things
and the demon of isolation in his own ego.
Dancing demands a freed person,
one who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers.
I praise the dance.
O man, learn to dance,
or else the angels in heaven will not know
what to do with you.
-St. Augustine
Leave it to a Catholic saint, considered one of the church’s greatest thinkers of all times, to hail dancing as a form of salute to our higher power…more accurately even…to declare our very existence.
It’s a nice thought…but somehow it seems when I take a turn on the dance floor, I am calling to a darker power…
Still, no matter how your motives, dancing is expression it it’s most primal…and as such, perhaps our purest vehicle of communication.
With that…may you dance through your weekend…whether you call to the god above, or the one below…just dance!
xxx
c.
