I have been dancing since I was eight years old. But dance to me has always been a physical exercise — something I do to stay fit. Even though it has also helped me stay focused mentally and emotionally centered, most of the time it has been about the physicality of it — except last week.
Body and Sole, the umbrella organization of dance groups at Brown, brought Cat Cogliandro to teach a workshop. For the first time in my life, I took in everything she was saying, not only what she was doing. She told us to forget judgments, because people will judge, to forget everything that is stressing us, because we are college students after all, and to just let ourselves be immersed in what was going on around us.
For the first time I danced with my soul rather than my mind. It didn’t matter that the steps weren’t perfect and that I tripped over myself because I was feeling every movement. All of a sudden the experience of dancing changed drastically. It wasn’t about being perfect and showing the audience something they hadn’t seen before. It was about me and what the dance was making me feel, what new emotions it could bring out in me.
I came to the conclusion that this is the true role of art. It shouldn’t be about the audience, it should be about the artist. Because truly beautiful art is not made with the audience in mind, it’s made when the performer or artist puts themselves out there and the spectator feels the genuineness of the artwork. More than anything, that’s the way we should be living our lives. Not for the sake of those watching, because they will always have criticisms and demands, but we should be living it for ourselves.