What is the sense of dance? Who we are when we are dancing? Can I see myself or I am watching just us together? Who you are if you are dancer? What does mean dance? Can we dance without music? What is music, if you are better dancer without her? Can we dance in the silent?
Somebody says that we are homo ludens all our lives, no because we chose that, its because of our basic sense. We couldn’t exist if we are not dancing. If we want to be free, we have to learn how to dance. Nothing is better than feeling your body in ecstasy of living. So, if you want to live, try to be perfect dancer of living.
Question is: how we can understand dance? There are a lot of answers in that question. First we will try to answer in philosophical then in anthropological way. The second answer will depend on the first one. But everything is a dance. Words are dance, reading is a dance and, in the end, life is a dance.
What can be the first answer?
Scene from the ballet of Tchaikovsky SOURCE
Plato – toys of ideas
You can learn more about man in one hour of play than during a one-year of conversation- says Plato. That was one of the first philosophical thinking about sense of dance. He thought that all his life, man has to be part of some game, because just there he can be free and close to himself.
How we can understand other person before in dance then in conversation? Answer is in his nature. When you are talking, you are thinking and when you are dancing you are free. So, moment of dance is moment of freedom.
Scene from the ballet Swan's Lake SOURCE
We have one more opinion of Plato about dance, when he says that humans are toys of gods. His philosophy stop it to be metaphysical and she started to live in world of people. So, we are toys of ideas, we have our role in this world and everything is in some kind of system. Way of our dancing is directed by somebody who is responsible for our destiny. Important is to dance, sense is in a movement.
Plotinus - creative power of gods.
One more philosopher from ancient time was thinking about dance. He thought that humans are repeating one first cosmic dance. That cosmic dance is mission sending by gods. So, we are in the first day of our lives defined like a creatures of dancing. We are not learning to dance, that is in our nature, like creatures of gods.
Famous american dancer Isadora Duncan SOURCE
Plotinus thought that humans are subject of gods creative divine. If we have in our nature that power sending by gods, we are able to repeat it in our own creativity. He thought that whole world functions according to the rules of the dance. Dance is not just personal thing, it has to be understand in ontological way. We are dancers but everything around us is a dance too.
Enjoying of dance - Immanuel Kant
Very important opinion about sense of dance, give German philosopher Immanuel Kant. He thought that dance is important because it released of purpose. It exists for itself. If we want to find reason for her, it stops to be a dance. The dance is an action that is pleasant by itself. Kant says that point is in enjoying, not in a meaning of dance.
One of his opinion talked about length of dance. She would like to last forever. In his nature we couldn’t recognise category of time. Nothing that is specific cant be a game. So, if we want to dance, its forbidden to ask about time, because in that case, dance would lose her primary sense. In the end, it stays: we are not dancing for some reason, we are dancing because we want to dance.
Collective work
In anthropological way we can understand dance like a collective work. Everything what is happening in same play has to be proved in social environment. Dance can be individual, but her real potention is founded in collective memory of society.
Serbian national dance SOURCE
Each culture has her own way of dancing, sow when we are dancing, we are dancing with our culture. There are a lot of opinions what in human brain is written music of space when he is born. We have some kind of special reaction in music and dance of our country. We are toys of god and toys of music made it from the people from our place of birth. When we are dancing, our culture is dancing with us, that’s the point – we are together.
Ritual character of dance
According to the ancient conception of time, it is understood in cyclical way. Everything what happened in one moment of time, it will be repeated again. Nothing is finished because it will come back. The point is in returning.
African dance SOURCE
The basic idea of the ritual is its repeatability. According to this, how we can understand a dance? Basic sense of dance can be ritual, because dance is something what is happening always, with people, its not individual. When we are dancing we are feeling free. Point of ritual is freedom. We are not thinking about our intellectual potential. We are thinking just with our body.
Traditional Indian dance SOURCE
Free space in our body and the soul
Dance can be celebration of happiness. There is something what is behind us in the moment of dance. We are not in our minds, we are in some kind of special state. Something is happening with our body and we are not thinking about that. We have some kind of free space in our mind and our soul.
We are with our own personality just in a moment of dance. Because nothing is around us and everything it is. We are with everybody and we are alone. Point is - just dance in ritual way of whole world.
That what is happening is happening now and always. When we are dancing, we are together.
Dance never will be finished, because her ritual character doesn’t prove that.
I hope that you like this article! See you in the next one.