What does one need to dance?

One of the courses I am taking this year is a two-part class on dance pedagogy. We're currently focusing on teaching Creative Dance, and exploring what that means. Last week we discussed what we thought "creativity" meant, and this week, one of my assignments is to write about what someone needs in order to dance.

Dance can happen at any moment and in any location. It is any motion that goes beyond the pedestrian day-to-day movements of every day life, and even that is negotiable. We see repeated actions of certain animals and call them "dances," such as the directional gestures of the honeybee—after looking this up, I learned that it is called the "Waggle Dance"—or the mating rituals of various Bird of Paradise species in New Guinea. For these creatures, the dance is instinctual and second-nature.  Even though these performances of the animal world are meant for an audience, human dances can take place alone in the living room to our favorite piece of music.

So, what does one need to dance? At first I thought, well, one needs a body in order to dance. (Their own body, not someone else's, because that would be weird and disturbing and probably illegal.) Dance is the action of moving through time and space at various rhythms, tempos, and intensities. For me, it is an intensely physical experience. It is sensory and tangible, and allows me to feel connected to my body.

Yes, one needs a body to dance. And not even a complete body or a conventional body with two limbs, two feet, and ten toes. I'm reminded of a video that circulated around social media recently of a quadruple amputee who has no limbs at all who is certainly still a dancer. She is shown performing the same choreography as a classroom of people at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York with more complete bodies, and yet, she is executing the movements in the same sentiment and timing as the rest. No one can deny that she is dancing.

One must need more than just a body to dance. I think someone also needs imagination. Whether it's through visualization—the amputee dancer says that she imagines that she does indeed have complete arms and legs when she dances—or through the act of creating dances through choreography. If one can not imagine themselves moving in a manner outside of the pedestrian, then I don't think they would be a very successful dancer. And by successful, I don't mean being a professional or earning money; just being able to move through space on various physical planes at different timings and using different energy levels.

What else? One needs a physical space, but it need not even be very large. I could dance in my chair right now by moving my body. And as many a modern and postmodern dance has shown, one doesn't even need music to dance.

What do we need in order to dance? A body. Imagination. A place to move. Yep. I think that's about it.