Dance is Not Mere Movement. Dance is Stillness.

Dance is Not Mere Movement. Dance is Stillness.

A personal reflection…. 

“In order to understand dance one must be still. And in order to truly understand stillness one must dance.” By Rumi

For many, dance is movement.

For me, it is stillness and awareness.

Any form of art trains you to observe deeply, honestly, completely. But dance does something no other art form does quite so completely. It makes your body, your breath, your mind and your emotion arrive at the same place, at the same moment, the Sama (first beat of a taal cycle). The moment everything converges.

During my years of training in Kathak, I realized the feet speak during Tatkaar. The emotions in the eyes carry generations of stories. The hands and body give shape to the empty space around you. And before the first tatkaar, before the first glance, before the first beat of the tabla, there is stillness.

That stillness is not empty. It is full. It is where everything begins. And it is stillness when everything culminates.

Dance opens up the mind to infinite possibilities. Not through books. Not through screens. Through observation around you and within you.

What do you feel? What does your heart resonate with?

The answers to every question we carry about who we are, what we are capable of, how we belong in this world. These answers are already within us. Dance is simply the practice of learning to look inward and trust what you find there.

It sounds simple. But going within is perhaps the most difficult journey any human being ever takes.

For that journey you need stillness.

And that stillness comes from dance.

What Dance Really Gives You

It is not a performance skill. It is a life skill.

Dance gives you the ability to observe, your surroundings, other people, your own reactions and even your own breath. It gives you the ability to be present, completely, wholly and without distraction.

Dance gives you the ability to emote. When you embody someone else’s joy or sorrow or another’s longing through movement, you simply don’t perform it but also try to understand it and feel it. When you come across such situations in real life with real people you learn to empathize with them.

Dance teaches you stillness through movement, presence through expression and the deepest kind of awareness. The awareness of oneself.

Dance is simply the practice of looking inward and to trust what you find there. For many, dance is movement.

For me it is stillness. It is awareness. It is the most human thing I know.