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sugartown cabaret
I hear the dance-music of all nations. So said Walt Whitman, who knew as much about the natural rhythms of passion as any 19th century white guy from New England could. I hear dervishes…as they spin around turning always towards Mecca, I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs. I hear them clapping their hands as they bend their bodies, I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet.
This isn’t dance; this is dancing. This isn’t the formalized, regulated, controlled movement of trained bodies to the accompaniment of long-established orthodox music. This is tribal; this is unrestrained, organic, unbounded and irrepressible motion. This is what comes when wild music snakes through the body and vibrates some inner harmonic. The body moves for the same reason a wineglass shatters at the sound of a high-pitched voice. It has no choice.
There is a reason some religions fear dance. There is a reason some religions celebrate through dance. Down at the bone, all dance is primitive. Deep in the blood, we all dance to the vital, rhythmic throbbing of our heart. Give me to hold all sounds, Fill me with all the voices of the universe, Endow me with their thobbings.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
