Every child is born to dance just like every bud and any sprout of life. A new born child that lies flat on its back raises and jiggles its tender legs and arms in the air in pure delight. With the playful movements of the cute little limbs the baby’s whole body pulsates in a joyful, vibrant mood. It seems the child yearns to levitate and break forth into dance. But our adult culture soon begins to suppress the dancer within. Little by little we become stiff like statues.
In India in the classical dance forms like Bharata Natya, dance is performed on stage by individuals, and the audience (Rasikas) watch it from a distance while they themselves are seated. The spontaneous folk dance seems to be alien to the upper social strata. In most African and tribal cultures it is different. There is no dance that divides people into onlookers and performers. At the slightest sound of a drum beat, bodies of people, from very young to very old, begin instinctively to assume dancing gestures.
Daya Bai, the compassionate social worker among the Adivasis and Tribal people related her experience during the Covid lock down. One evening she went out of her hut and looked at the vast expanse of the multi coloured sky. Overwhelmed for a moment by the cosmic beauty, the octogenarian started singing an old melody and broke out into dancing. Her dog too, a constant companion, danced with her as he imitated her body movements and the sound of her singing in his own way. See the power of dance that radiates energy, movement and rhythm all around. No wonder cosmic creation, protection and destruction are understood as dance movements in the Saiva tradition, and Siva the all-powerful deity is called Nataraja, the Lord of Dance.
At the subatomic micro levels of the material universe, particles are in unceasing dance movement. At the macro level of ever expanding cosmos, planets, stars and galaxies are in unending cycles of dance. In between, for us even a slight awareness of the dancer within may liberate us from the many woes of existence.
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