Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Message for International Dance Day 2020 (by Gregory Vuyani Maqoma)


Message for International Dance Day 2020

29 April 2020

English (original)

By Gregory Vuyani Maqoma, South AfricaAfrica.
Dancer, actor, choreographer and dance educator


It was during an interview I had recently that I had to think deeply about dance, what does it mean to me? In my response, I had to look into my journey, and I realized that it was all about purpose and each day presents a new challenge that needs to be confronted, and it is through dance that I try to make sense of the world.

We are leaving through unimaginable tragedies, in a time that I could best describe as the post-human era. More than ever, we need to dance with purpose, to remind the world that humanity stillexists. Purpose and empathy need to prevail over years and years of undeniable virtual landscape ofdissolution that has given rise to a catharsis of universal grief conquering the sadness, the hard realitythat continues to permeate the living confronted by death, rejection and poverty. Our dance mustmore than ever give a strong signal to the world leaders and those entrusted with safeguarding andimproving human conditions that we are an army of furious thinkers, and our purpose is one thatstrives to change the world one step at a time. Dance is freedom, and through our found freedom,we must free others from the entrapments they face in different corners of the world. Dance is notnotpolitical political but becomes political because it caries in its fibre a human connection and therefore responds to circumstances in its attempt to restore human dignity. 

As we dance with our bodies, tumbling in space and tangling together, we become a force of movement weaving hearts, touching souls and providing healing that is so desperately needed. And purpose becomes a single hydra-headed, invincible and indivisible dance. All we need now is to dance some more!!!!

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