By Guest Blogger on July 19, 2010

Why Do We Dance?

Why do we dance? We dance because it’s the fastest, most direct route to the truth—not some big truth that belongs to everybody, but the get-down-and-personal kind; the what’s-happening-in-me-right-now kind of truth. This is not always easy for us to access—we have to navigate some very deep past, as well as the probable futures we drum up to feed the fear that drives us around the same circles, day in and day out. We dance to hook up to the true genius lurking behind all that bullshit—to seek refuge in our originality and our power to reinvent ourselves; to shed the past, forget the future, and fall into the moment feet first. Do you remember being fifteen, possessed by the beat, by the thrill of music pumping loud enough to drown out everything you’d ever known? Of course you do.

We dance to reclaim our brilliant ability to disappear in something bigger, something safe, a space without a critic or a judge or an analyst. The beat is a lover that never disappoints and, like all lovers, it demands 100% surrender. It has the power to seduce moves we couldn’t dream. It grabs us by the belly, turns us inside out and leaves us abruptly begging for more. The beat is bad, wicked, sick—whatever the word is now.

We dance to fall in love with the spirit in all things, to wipe out memory or transform it into moves that nobody else can make because they didn’t live it. It’s a sacred thing, the beat. We love beats that move faster than we can think, beats that drive us ever deeper inside, that rock our worlds, break down walls and make us sweat our prayers.

We dance to survive, and the beat offers a yellow brick road to make it through the chaos that is the tempo of our times. Chaos is the way of the mind when it is freestyling, winding its way back to an instinctive, intuitive intelligence, the kind we need to survive—not only the real shit going down, but the massive amount of stuff we insist on making up to ensure our suffering. God provides and god don’t need no help. God is the dance, the dance is the way to freedom, and freedom is our holy work.

So get down and find out what your hands, your shoulders, your elbows, knees and, most importantly, your hips and feet have to say about it. Close the door, pull down the shades, pick out a passionate piece of music, and turn it up real loud. Now, lie down on the floor and let your body become a speaker. Listen to the music with your whole body. Listen with your head, your shoulders, your elbows, your hands, your spine, your belly, your thighs, your knees, your calves, your feet. Let the music pass through you. Feel the vibration of the music in each part of you. Which part feels the bass, the treble? What instrument tugs at your heart, your hips?

Play it again. This time, move your body—dance with this new awareness of the music.

There is a dance only you can do, that exists only in you, here and now, always changing, always true. Are you willing to listen with fascination? If you are, it will deliver you unto the self you have always dreamed you could be. This is a promise.

Gabrielle Roth, world-renowned theater director, movement innovator, and recording artist, is the best-selling author of MAPS TO ECSTASY, SWEAT YOUR PRAYERS, and CONNECTIONS. For more than 30 years, she has worked to heal the deadening split between spirit and flesh though her own form of ecstatic dance, the 5Rhythms®.
Photo Credit: Lane Diko

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