'Are We Human or Are We Dancers'

The letters that come up on the screen do a little dance – text, back space, text, back space – while I contemplate what to write about. As I conduct this little Cha-Cha, it hits me – what better to write about than pretty much the most important thing in my life? Dance.

I spoke to my dance teacher back home after a long time, today. It made me really miss the hours I spent in her hall, just dancing. It's been a while since I truly felt the joy of dancing (classically).  Months, in fact. I honestly intended to continue dance in Bangalore, but the teacher I found hardly seems interested in teaching me or teaching at all, and with my back constantly being a pain, nothing really happened. After spending entire days at my dance teacher's house last Summer, dancing and dancing in preparation for my Arangetram, the lack of dance for so long has left me feeling sudden pangs of emptiness which I often find no explanation for. 

Dance has come to mean something more than simply steps and choreography to me. I've been through that stage when that's all it meant – when I'd make up excuses to not go for class simply because I was 'too tired' or 'my head hurt' and basically because I was lazy and didn't understand the beauty of dance. I give credit to my dance teacher for it, but eventually dance became essential for me. I learnt that unless I had some significant physical ailment, every excuse to not go for dance class was invalid because dance solved it all. Whether my head hurt or I was in a bad mood, whether my brain was throbbing hard against my head, full of thoughts, threatening to explode, dance was my liberator. Still is. 

When I dance, I am happy. In spite of my muscles complaining, and begging to be freed, in spite of my head spinning and exhaustion threatening to overcome me, I am released from my ties with the normal world, and enter a wholly new and beautiful existence. I forget the problems of the world and all its people, and just delve into the emotion and gentility of every movement and expression. In that space, made up of music, beats and soul, a surge of happiness and fulfilment engulfs me. 

Although I've only learnt Bharatanatyam, even if I freestyle at parties, or learn something I’m terrible at, just the possibility of moulding simple movements into something so graceful and beautiful, excites me. There is a certain joy to gaining energy from and then putting in so much energy into movement that it results in blissful exhaustion. My dance teachers words to me, "You must feel the emotion and you will forget the pain," as I complained about a back ache or tiredness, ring in my ears even now. Through that, I've understood what it means to feel pure joy. A time when no matter how hard I try to stop myself from smiling, the corners of my mouth lift themselves upward into a broad, largely displayed expression of glee. That passion, which I've learnt to identify it as, makes all the difference to any one who dances and any one who watches. 

So now, although I haven't properly danced in a while, I can still find solace in it (how else would I get through listening to EDM?). Let it suffice to say, that if The Killers ever come around asking if we're humans or dancers, you'll know my answer.