Monday Love to your Passion and Play

“ People do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.”

?~?Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Where do you draw the line? How do you decide what something is or isn’t? Is it possible to delineate a clear boundary, or is everything just different shades of gray?

Let’s start with something we’re all familiar with, that being, of course, dance. The definition of such a thing is necessarily subjective, from the inside looking out it has sort of a “I’ll know it when I see it” quality about it.

If you look under the big umbrella that popular culture places over dance, you’ll obviously see things like ballet, modern dance, social dancing like tango or salsa, and of course anything that happens in a nightclub or electronic dance music setting.

But when you zoom out further, and get into the practices that one might refer to as “conscious dance“ things get a little bit more fuzzy. Authentic Movement? Well, that often happens with two people, only one of whom is moving while the other one witnesses, and no music. The?Tamalpa Life/Art Process? You might find that communing with nature and making art about it is as important as the physical motion.

And what about things like Capoeira? It looks like dance yet it has much in common with martial arts. Freestyle Frisbee? That happens with music and movement, yet it is a competitive sport.

The upshot of these thoughts is that the drive to define something is often misguided when we’re dealing with something nebulous and subjective.

Case in point: Play. My thoughts on this started bubbling up last week when we were treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of?The Strong National Museum of Play?in Rochester, New York. If you’re not familiar with The Strong, it is well worth knowing about and making a special trip to visit if you find yourself an upstate New York.

Home to the world’s largest collection of toys, games, puzzles, and playthings, The Strong is a museum like no other. Several of the events at the?Puzzle Parley?were tied in with The Strong. My sweetheart Isabelle has one of?her puzzles?on display there and she was invited to do a live wooden puzzle cutting demonstration. They also recently came into possession of several thousand vintage jigsaw puzzles from the collection of Anne Williams.

Curator Chris Bensch gave an excellent presentation where he shared that one of the most common questions they get asked as administrators of the museum is: “How do you define play?” I found his answer quite revealing, and germane to the conversations we have here about dance.

He basically said “We don’t. It doesn’t serve our mission to create a hard boundary. In other words, our job is to highlight and expose all of the different entry points to what might be considered play and not presume to judge things for others.”

His words made a lot of sense, and I feel the same approach applies well to dance. It’s more like, “If you say what you’re doing is dance, then so be it.” Only you are passionately inside your practice. Some things can only be defined from the inside looking out. If you’re not in it, you have no business making any kind of determination about it. As long as what you are doing doesn’t negatively impact anyone else’s experience, then you be you and rock on.

So dance, play, and express yourself how you may. Some things, like facts and science, have a clearly defined border, but when it comes to the subjective arts and personally-defined pleasurable practices, well, it’s up to you.

Playfully wishing you well and much love till next Monday!

M+

Mark Metz Director of the?Dance First Association

Publisher of?Conscious Dancer Magazine

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Monday Love is the weekly inspirational newsletter written by Mark Metz, publisher of Conscious Dancer and director of the Dance First Association. Join our mailing list and learn about membership at www.consciousdancer.com