The Art Of The Dancer

I am a dancer. I live for the dance, the slow undulating changes of tone and pitch, of timbre and texture, and this is my story.

To fully understand you must comprehend that which drives the dancers. It is not the moment of stillness as the music dies away to near silence, a single haunting melody pulling the shape of what is to come, nor is it the moment of elation driven by the rapidly rising synth lines; the complex arrpegiations of notes falling rapidly as each person twists and turns on the dancefloor.

It is the combination of the two. Even in the soft, slow moments of stillness, the dancer is not stationary, the simple act of staying still beyond his reach. But this is the way it should be. The dancers art is that of motion, dictated by the rising undulation of a careully controlled rhythm, pictured only in his moment of change. For it is only change that defines each dancer, the ability to flow and shift to a beat which is more often than not unseen or unheard.

But watch one turn, drifting on his own rhythm; stepping across his own beat, lightly drifting between the illuminated walls of colour as he drops and turns to the rise of the drums. Watch him dance and try to follow him; try to follow the dancer as you dance to the music you can hear. It is only during this act that you will learn a frightning truth. The dancer does not hear the music. The dancer does not dance to someone elses music, instead, he dances to the rhythm that only he can feel.

While he dances, watch the other; dancing to impress those around them, dancing for the attention they receive. These are the false ones, dancing without feeling, each cut and turn perfectly executed in an endless sequence of Dance-By-Numbers. These are the people who dance with their friends, a group of people dancing together in an on-going game of one-up-manship.

The dancer dances through them, along with the music encompassing his heart and soul through the never ending movement of the dance. He is on his own and alone, even if he arrived with a hundred people, becuase to the dancer, the people don't matter. He steps lightly through the crowd, choosing where the dance will take him as each moment passes, but not once does he collide with anyone; his own stepping granting him an awareness of the crowd that surpasses mere sight alone. Now, look closer, the sly half-smile and the shallow breathing, as effortlessly he continues to dance. Notice the unfocussed eyes, not seeing what is around him as he has no need, all of his sense tied into the writhing beat of the music he feels.

Slowly the pace of his dance changes, no longer does he follow the energetic, quasi-euphoric beat that drives the rest of the crowd, instead he drops to a more stately pace, the curves and turns following a lazy, cyclic path, while around him the music continues on it's frantic path through chemically driven chaos. He dances now slower, effortlessly drifting onwards, his moves, cuts and turns passing over and through the music. Now the music begins to change, its frenetic pace reducing slowly. The pre-extisting madness is being slowly replaced with a much slower semi-ambient soundscape, and now the music is in time with the dancer.

It is never the other way around. The dancer dances to what he feels, what he percieves and rarely that which he hears. Seemingly out of time as he dances, without even the slightest change in his stepping pattern he is in time again; not because he has caught up with the music, but because the music has caught up with him.

This has show-cased what he can do; the semi-lethargic twist and turn over the almost insiduous ambience created by the gentle flow of the synth or strings. His movements are truely beautiful, each turn dropping perfectly onto the harmonies that only he can percieve, each hand motion dropping with precision onto the non-existant drum line.

His pace quickens, the steps now faster than before, each movement, still filled with the same fluid grace that was present before is now fractionally faster, and still it accelerates.. Now he dances to a new beat, the change in play only cogniscant within his own head, changing ahead of the music once again. People turn to watch him, confused by his actions as he twists and turns above and beyond the rhythm, and slowly the confusion turns to incredulity as once again the music picks up under him, a single complex snare fill dropping once again into the main drum line, perfectly timed to match his own dancing. Everyone stops to stare at our dancer, moving in a way that almost seems to predict the beat, until with another eclectic burst of energy everyone starts to dance again. He stops dancing now, walking to get a drink, but still constantly in motion, in rhythm, in time to a music he doesn't listen to.

This is what marks a dancer apart from someone who just dances. The singularity on the dancefloor when surrounded by friends, stepping to a rhythm that many don't percieve. The ability to step across or through almost any beat, even to the beat which is not yet there, and to step back out from the beat with almost as much ease. The constance of motion even when no beat is visible or conceivable. This is what separates the dancer from everyone else. This is why I am a dancer. This is why I follow the dance.

This is why I will always be found on the edge of the world, dancing to the beat that only I can hear.