The dancing girl

The Dancing Girl

of course,I have never had any illusions about my two left feet...my dancing skills..(or my singing or acting skills,, for that matter).

i have always envied those people, for whom dancing is, but a child's play....as far as I was concerned, dancers always spoke a totally alien language, a tongue i scant understood...they seemed god's chosen children. people born with a knowledge of a language so natural, so fluent, so fluid, so graceful, so effortless, that it almost seems terribly unfair, to people like us, who can use our legs only for mundane things like climbing stairs, running, jogging, trekking even,or catching trains, or buses.
,Dancing, for me, has always been a whole different world ...an interesting, promising, mysterious ....and always closed world, with the doors tightly shut. always.

Animals don't dance...at least not in the elaborate way we humans do.it is us, humans who have invented this wonderful form of self expression. a vehicle to let go of stiffness, of both, body and soul, a vehicle to fly light.a vehicle of merriment.enjoyment, laughter, a vehicle to forget all negativity, and bask in creation, using the body divine.

some of my inability to dance with abandon, also stems from the deep routed inhibition that dancing in public is a kind of exhibitionism, something not right.

There has always been a certain element of dis respectability in dancing (devdasis, mujras, nauch girls for example), where women are accused of shamelessly peddling their wares, to enticemen, who feel legitimately entitled to gawk at her peddled wares.In that sense, there is a duality in dance...dancers for the lord, and yet dance is often also seen as a form of decadence.meerabai before she was finally anointed as a saint, was actually almost killed for singing and dancing in public places with strange men. even popular bollywood movies have not refrained from making stories when the female dancer is just viewed as an element of lust, as an object pandering to a man's lust.

so then, what is the essence of a dance? How does he see himself? does he see himself as a person who is shamelessly drowning in sensual pleasures, catering to people who are drowning in them? im particularly talking of popular dance forms, which is what most laymen enjoy. (I doubt even dancers would be able to answer this one, cause dancers are not intellectuals, or masters with words, they don't have any need for intellectualism, and words are the only language, that a non dancer can understand).

About a month back, i was matching steps, that is, trying to match steps, with my dance teacher, when i noticed that somewhere she had sub consciously stopped teaching, and was lost in the dance, of a raunchy Bollywood number...she was in that instant, that dancing woman.

her expression as she danced,to a particular line was...well, how do i put it?.....she was 'shamelessly' pandering to the collective lust of all the imaginary men in a gathering...its like, she knew they were lusting for her,, she was enjoying their rapt attentive lust, she was gloating in her power and yet., she was not denouncing their lust, their manhood..she in fact was encouraging their 'lust'... giving it the rightful color of love.. color of passion..giving it the respectability it deserved...and though in reality, she was dancing for nobody in particular,at that point of time, through her dance,she was still speaking to each and every man present there.and, they all got the same message from her.. .she was teasing him and only him.drawing him out...seeking him.waiting for his love.... her eyes was for him only. he was her king, her lord. ....and all this she conveyed in that one single expression.

and that's when the penny dropped.This is the essence of a dance..a performance. dance is a medium to instantly break walls, between men and women.tear it down. dance communicates through unintended actions, an instant bonding of all human beings..it frees men and women from their tightly packed gender rules and regulations.it accepts lust is a natural emotion, something to be celebrated, not something to be ashamed of. where, men and women have the permission not to have to hide their sexual energies, behind cloaks of respectability.