Life Through Dance

When Dance Looks Like Magic

By Elizabeth Dickinson

It’s been said that any technology sufficiently advanced (think Star Trek) can look like magic to a less technically evolved species. I’ve had a similar reaction to dance mastery many times.

Watching the pros gracefully execute some gravity-defying, balance-defying, flexibility-defying move can fill me with a kind of wonder. Some kind of supernatural force must be at work. How the heck do they do those moves?

Early on, I could imagine myself doing some of it. They make it look so easy; how hard could it be?

I was quickly disabused of that notion when I got steeped in the dance learning curve. What once seemed so simple turned out to have layers and layers of technique embedded in it.

A Twin Cities dance teacher once said that learning to dance was a journey. It seems like the only “destination” is when you’ve decided you don’t want to learn any more. And there’s always something further to master, if you continue the journey. Kind of like life.

To dance mastery and dance magic.