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Sunday, August 2, 2009

Dancing Ruminations

Dave Matthews, of the band with the same name, was asked about his dancing style in an interview with Jon Bream of the Minneapolis Star Tribune ...
I don't do it very well, but I enjoy it. I don't think dancing should be
left up to the people that do it professionally or the people that think they're
really good at it. I think people that feel things in their hearts should
take it away from people who feel things with their brains. I like dancing
because it makes me feel good, and I can make a fool of myself. I like to
make a fool of myself because that's part of what the music in this band is -
being free, really free, away from the confines and conformities of fashion and
hipness and coolness and celebrity and the in clique. That's why I
dance. It feels like freedom.

His statement resonates with me a great deal. There is a place for structure and high art, but it should never upstage its roots. The arts at its most basic is a means for personal expression. Over the ages this has been lost, I think primarily because the wealthy or the church had the means to deem what was worth keeping.

So do as the African proverb says: If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing!