Why I Have to Dance ...

These days most of the time I spend dancing I spend doing Ballroom and Latin dance with the UCT society. It is at once a very demanding and technical but fun and social way of getting my dance fix. Not too long ago I was having problems communicating with my dance partner. The problems were emotionally frustrating and grueling enough that I was considering throwing in the towel with the particular partnership (regardless of how well he and I dance together) simply because I was that unhappy and to add to that I dance horribly when I'm not in a good emotional space.

My feelings about the partnership are still up in the air but considering the whole saga I was led to a place where I feel it is time to deconstruct (at least partly) what dance means to me and why it is so integral to my life that I have been known to wake up at 4am because I simply have to dance.

I could have been no older than 5 when I decided I wanted to be a dancer. I had been to an open air theatre to see a dance show and I walked out knowing that it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It had been a contemporary ballet piece but now I remember little aside from the magnetic quality of the raw emotional energy and the consequent certainty that I needed to learn to dance like that. Naturally I started Ballet in my first school year and for a very long time my life goal was to become a Prima Ballerina. Over the years I experienced many different styles of dance and was, to various degrees: enchanted, challenged, disappointed, stretched, surprised, transported.

My definition of what a dancer is has changed remarkably since I was 5 but if asked to give only 1 definition of myself that's still it: I'm a dancer.

Dancing still holds magic for me. It allows me to express parts of my soul that I can't even see clearly and it enables communication without the limitations and inadequacies of words. Communication with an audience, a partner, other people in the dance, God or simply particles of the universe. When dancing you connect people to your emotion without a detour through the forest of words. Everyone can understand non-voiced communication, admittedly many forget to pay attention but in truth it's a form of communication instinctively understood and a predecessor to words.

In general dancing is primal both as an art form and a form of communication. For me, when I dance I can be strong and vulnerable at the same time. I can be honest in expressing emotions and knots in my soul that I can't even understand or see but my very darkest and difficult moment can be transformed into something that is exquisitely beautiful.