Dancing matters because matter moves. So make your moves matter.
Every time I’ve been separated from the dance I feel the power of its beauty and grace more deeply. Within the stillness, in its giant, mysterious embrace, I’m finding that a different kind of movement fascinates me. It’s like being in a field of perpetual meditation, tuned into my breath in a way I have never been, the beat of my heart, the simple things. The feeling in the soles of my feet when they’re not touching this earth, when they’re not dancing on the skin of the great mother, but more listening for the song of the great father spirit, the force that moves us. Letting go is such a curious process. For me right now it feels like shedding, like a snake shedding skins of myself in a perpetual process of renewal, a very quiet process. Not as dramatic as that which I’m used to. No big booming beat to back me up, nothing but my sweet little heart beat. And it’s from this place that I reach out to you to remind all of us that dancing really makes a difference, not just in our own lives, in our own bodies, but in the way we touch each other, physically and metaphysically. Dancing matters because it’s soul food. We hunger for ecstasy, for that quiet disappearing act when whoever we think we are turns into all that we can be. So it doesn’t matter if you dance in the subway, in the backseat of a car, on a rooftop, in a grocery line, in a room by yourself, or in a room of spinning bodies. What matters is that we keep moving and spurring each other on into the depths of our creativity and originality, to be imaginative and a little bit wicked, at least with our wit. Having witnessed this unfolding on thousands of dance floors, people falling backward into themselves, into being whatever is real in that moment, I know that’s why dancing matters. It matters because it’s the fastest way to tell the truth. The thing I like best about the body is that it can’t lie. And the thing that I hate most about the body is that it can’t lie. So I live on the edge, seeking the truth that’s ever changing, and knowing only this: in order to keep up with it we have to keep moving.
If I weren’t sitting here, I’d be dancing, and if I were dancing, I wouldn’t be having these thoughts. So do a dance for me, but do it wild. Make me sweat.
Gabrielle.
