黃佳淳
Do you use your brain to dance or
do you dance with your brain?
Dancing is a language of the body that is free from the mind. Our body sculpts itself into continuous sculpture to express itself.
Therefore to dance is also to be still. To not to move unless the wind blows, unless it is necessary.
But is the mind and the body so separate?
The language of the body: It is fascinating to see how much we can learn about one from how one walks, how one moves through the space, how one carries oneself. Either consciously or unconsciously, our body speaks a lot about ourselves.
It is weird to think about how our brain (mind) is contained in our body, and have almost all of the control over the body that contains it. It is like we can drive the houses we live in as spaceships and being able to move freely in space. It's insane!
Our daily life requires our body to be in certain forms and shapes. For example: to take a shower we have to move in a certain way, we sit on the train very differently than how we sit on the bed.
To dance is to break free from these forms and let the body take over the body. To let the body speaks for itself.
Perhaps that is why going to a dance show is so exciting, to see the other body in forms that is seldom seen in daily life. Forms so different then ours that it almost seems alien.
Butoh: A dance form originated from Japan. Having the pleasure to see Yuko Kaseki’s Shoot Geez My Gosh, I was astounded and left speechless by it. I might not know butoh enough to explain what it is, but here is what butoh choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata says:
“The world’s dance started from standing, but mine started from not being able to stand” “...encounter with something in the body that has gone astray”
Let us all dance! With the dancing Shiva while we still can!