Perhaps the first archeological proof
of dance comes from 9,000-year-old cave paintings in India, or the dancing
figures depicted in ancient Egyptian tombs.
Historians believe that celebratory and ritual dances are essential to
the development of early human civilizations.
Why am I talking about this? Well, yesterday the weather precluded my
taking my daily walk and my body and my mind reacted in an uncivilized
way. I was achy and grumpy and certainly
not civil. My body was telling me, “move, girl.” Then I came upon some news footage of people
dancing as part of a protest near the White House. This made me think about the words movements
and movement. To move is to
change position, physically. To move
someone is to stir their emotions, to persuade.
To move is to take a stand: “I move that the Board ratify these
changes.” “The motion passes five to
four.” To move is to keep pace: to move
with the times. Moving up. Moving on.
Moving forward. The women’s movement. The civil rights movement. The anti-war
movement. A movement can be a piece of
music, a pattern of dance steps. Which
brings me back to those dancers at the protest.
Rather than being antithetical to their purposes, their dancing was a
natural consequence of their demands.
The urgent call for movement demanded movement. And the long pent-up feelings of the
protestors, the adrenalin rush of rage at injustice, combined with the joy of
solidarity and the hope for change found its natural expression in that
dancing.
Gotta move. Back to the historians. Researchers think that as early humans needed
to cooperate with each other to survive, dance may have been a kind of social
interaction that established that cooperation.
(Weird fact: in a study of some of the world’s best dancers, researchers
found they shared two specific genes that are thought to predispose people to
be good social communicators.) But what
of us two-left-feeters (meaning me)? You
already know about my rhythm deficiency anemia.
Here’s proof. Many years ago,
while we lived in Holland, my companion in isolation and I decided to take
dancing lessons, having grown up in the era when shaking what our mamas gave us
did not require moving our feet in any perceivable pattern. Problems arose in that only one of us spoke
Dutch (me) and one of us was supposed to lead (not me). So the teacher spoke, I translated, we argued
about the accuracy of my translation, and we danced, several crucial beats
behind the music and everyone else.
Chaos. Not good social
communication. But that is ancient
history.
Now I see dance as movement, as an
important component of feeling, of healing.
I don’t need to be an expert, just as I don’t need to be in a position
of power or authority to effect change.
I just have to move.
Recently the New York Times featured an
article about how music and dance are sources of healing in Ojibwe culture. I
quote the author, Dr. Brenda Child, “Traditions of song and dance help restore
the balance that is drained by bodily sickness and deliver spiritual sustenance
to those who have lost loved ones. Art, in other words, allows us to survive.”
Art Heals. Let’s dance.
This is Shinnecock Fancy Shawl Dancer,
Tohanash Tarrant, Bruce’s Garden, New York City by photographer Phoebe Farris
(Powhatan-Pamunkey)
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