For this blog, I wanted to share a personal experience. It is about my emotional journey with the art form.
We all have that one point in life where we reach the lowest; for me, it was being diagnosed with liver tuberculosis. Although I was losing every bit of hope by the day, one ray of sunshine always dawned on me through the passion of dance. It gave the allure of mythological stories, the love for classical music, and a sense of liberation through it all.
Going through all the heavy medication was never easy, but when I played a different character through dance, all the agony seemed to fade and what remained was the sense of freedom. At times we need to distance ourselves from our lives and exist as a mere entity that can sit back and observe until the situation has subdued- dance gave me that opportunity when I most needed it.
As a young girl, I was encouraged by my mother to learn this art form, but eventually, the motivation to seek this ecstasy came from the art itself. As my journey began with the baby steps towards understanding dance’s language, I could not help but complain about the exertion that accompanied it. And yet, eventually, the journey drifted from the mere physical dimension towards the metaphysical and beyond.

It guided me to seek horizons that I never knew of and express the diverse arrays of emotions that complete our existence. As an introvert, communicating through words was not my first choice, but fortunately, dance helped me channelize my emotions and thoughts without inhibitions. We all need an anchor to help us cease in the continually changing world, something that we can cling on to in times of joy and sorrow, something beyond the fabric of time- for me, it is dance. A long journey to be the one with the universe without giving up on the joys of mere existence.
“My once heavily bound legs slowly ceased or so I felt; the sweet aroma of the flowers that decorated my hair diffused across the brightly lit stage. The gently dripping sweat suddenly stopped still. The loud melodies pierced the still air that surrounded stationery as if the lord of dance himself were to dance by my side. All that remained with me was a sense of liberation, I was a mere drop in the vast ocean of the art, awaiting to touch the perfection of the ancestors and to precipitate back into the depths of the ocean to rediscover liberation.”

-AditeeA