I know there is still a dancer inside me because I see dance everywhere. Even in things that might not look or feel like dance to other people.
This winter I have been watching college and NFL football with my husband. When a player gets a touchdown there is often a burst of joy. And then a gesture, a wiggle, and a jump and chest-bump with a teammate. It says, “Yeah!” and “In your face!” This feels like dance to me.
There is a little girl in my neighborhood who has stegosaurus spikes on her helmet who is learning to ride a kick scooter. She pushes off with one foot two or three times from the ground and then her back leg extends backwards in a low arabesque that she suspends as she glides. This looks like dance to me.
My parents visited recently and accompanied me on a walk. My chihuahua pug and I were far ahead of them (her little, strong, barrel-chested body hurtled me along – she’s the leader) and her energy was linear starts and stops punctuated by sniffing and circulating trees. It was a chilly day, and my parents walked slowly behind us, my father with his arm around my mother’s shoulders. I noticed that their legs were in tandem and keeping the same pace. The four of us together, my tiny dog out front pulling me behind on a leash, my parents bonded and weighted behind us. This energy – energetic pull to the front, weight, and stability in the back – as well as the elongated triangle pattern, felt like dance to me.
The philosopher in me objects to the idea that there IS dance in these things because that would make the category of dance too broad. The philosopher knows that expressive, concerted, or patterned movement alone is not dance even if it looks similar or identical to dance movements. When something is dance it participates in a cultural and historic practice that recognizes it as such.
There is something here, though, that I do think I can say is relevant to the concept of dance. It conveys something about the lived experience of a former dancer. The observations above are less about what dance *is* and more about what it is like to lose parts of a dancer’s body and capabilities but retain the feeling responsiveness inside. The part of me that jumps in the air (yeah!) extends and glides, moves in patterned rhythms with others and that sees dance everywhere is still there.