Email: Which daily hobbies do you enjoy the most? (Malaysia)
Writing like dancing is an art available to those who may have nothing! “For 6 pence,” Virginia Woolf, “one can buy paper enough to write plays of Shakespeare.” Similarly, an absolutely necessary equipment in dance is our own senses, body. Maybe on stage in front of people or before a bedroom mirror, just doesn’t change a playful thing. What’ll we be – ourself? A representation? A symbol? A character? A wish?
Nicholas Brothers weren’t formally trained in dance. In movies, performances were filmed as not essential to story. Genius ring-fenced. Genius undeniable! Their routine in Stormy Weather, greatest example of cinematic dance. Sometimes, between stress and joy, choose joy hidden in hobbies!
Art of not dancing, writing, pursuing hobbies is a vital lesson. Sometimes, important to be authentically awkward, inelegant, neither poetic nor prosaic, to be positively bad, creatively silly! To express weirdness, to stop making sense, no expectations just gratitude. At times, logic is a liberating thought, a natural expression, a spark, a racing heart. A welcome surrender from routine.
Occasionally, passionately meet musical beats, curves of a drum with matching curving movements of our body. Harmony, heat. Meet curves of a pen with curves of our wildest, innocent imaginations. A curiously crazy idea, a spontaneous spasm!