Dancing alone can be special, as can dancing with people in groups of two or more. Dancing together can be a magical social experience where we transcend spoken language and communicate in other ways. Dancing together is special for me because you’re not alone in movement. You are taking someone along with you. While doing a solo dance, one may get lazy and miss a couple of beats but in an intimate two person dance, a missed beat will have an effect on your partner and that kind of codependency fosters awareness and alertness to social cues. It is important that dance be seen in a light-hearted spirit. The moment dance becomes about competition or performance, the expressive element takes a back seat.
When dancing, there is nowhere else to be but in the music, in the moment, in the beat right now. The music is fluid and you must allow it to reach your bones in a way that your deeply seated instincts to move awaken. Once you have awakened from within, the whole dance floor is yours. You are in tune with everything and everyone the music touches
Often, we hear people say that they don’t dance or that they are not good at it. This is mere conditioning. Social conditioning has led them to believe certain things about skill that simply aren’t true. Firstly, dancing isn’t about merit, it doesn’t have to be. With social dancing, there is a barrier of coming across as a bad dancer or embarrassing yourself but beyond judgement and inhibition is where the magic happens. Let the dance flow, not your mind.
Your body will thank you, take a dance lesson this weekend.
