D is for Dance

D is for dance.

I was going to say D is for delicious, but I already mentioned chocolate..so here is the next best thing..

There are a great many sayings about dance that distill its essence into neat perspectives:

“Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”
~Robert Frost

“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.”
~Mikhail Baryshnikov

“Dance like there’s nobody watching. Or filming. Never mind that creepy guy in the corner with the camcorder. Just keep dancing.”
~Jarod Kintz

“Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.”
~William Edgar Stafford

"Dancing faces you towards Heaven, whichever direction you turn.”

~Terri Guillemets

"Life is short and there will always be dirty dishes, so let's dance.”

~James Howe

“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.”

~Agnes de Mille

“Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!”

~Constanze

..and my favourite of the lot,

”There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.”

~Vicki Baum

Dance. It’s a beautiful way of looking at existence. Dance can be performed alone, but the mastery of dancing with a partner or a company of people truly demonstrates the cooperative skill of the dancers. This is an analogy for life that captures for me the beauty and satisfaction of learning to live in harmonious relationship with others.

Dancing together is not dependency. A successful dance partnership involves each dancer taking responsibility for own steps, own rhythm, and own stamina, while also being ever aware of these things in the other. It is truly a focus of each on the rhythm that keeps the dance in sync and beautiful. 

The dance can be debonaire, deliberate, delicate, daring, delirious..  performed solo or with others, as an expression of emotion, ideas, interpretation, beauty and skill.. with music or without.. impromptu or rehearsed, .. it’s the soul given voice to speak.

Dance gives off sparks.. of passion and of harmony. I want my life to be like that.

Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Matthew Lehman, Fiona Evans and Daryl Brandwood perform 'Strings 32'

Sebastian Kloborg