Let's Dance

Before we built cities or wrote history, we danced.

Movement was our first language—a way to speak before words, to feel before thought. Dance wasn’t something we chose; it was something that happened to us, a force as natural as breath.

Funny how we’ve spent centuries trying to make life orderly, yet the truest expression of it is a body moving to a rhythm no one can explain..

Let’s Dance

Before words, before laws, before the idea of what it meant to be human, there was movement.

Dance.

A primal language etched into the body, unbound by reason or structure.

It didn’t wait for permission; it simply happened—an instinctive rebellion against stillness.

Dance wasn’t something we learned; it was something we remembered.

In those early rhythms, the first steps of humanity were taken—not just as a species, but as individuals. Movement became a way to communicate what couldn’t be said, to express the inexpressible: desire, grief, joy, connection.

To dance was to declare, I am here. It was a prayer and a protest, a way to push against the void and feel alive.

Before civilization taught us to sit still and behave, dance moved freely, untethered by judgment. Around fires and under open skies, bodies swayed to rhythms born from within.

The beat of a drum mimicked the pulse of the heart, the stamp of feet echoed the earth’s vibration.

Dance wasn’t just movement—it was memory.

It connected humans to one another, to nature, and to something far beyond themselves.

Even now, when the world feels fragmented and controlled, we are drawn to dance as if by instinct.

The first rhythm still lives in us, buried beneath layers of thought and restraint.

When we let go, when we give in to the music, we return to that original pulse.

In those moments, we aren’t trying to be anything—we are simply being.

Dance is our oldest language, unspoken yet universal.

It’s where we began, and it’s where we go when words fail.

Every step is a reminder that the body remembers what the mind forgets: freedom, connection, joy.

Dance is humanity’s first truth.

The Gods

Dance is where gods slip into motion, and humans stumble toward transcendence.

It’s where the sacred and the ridiculous collide—a spinning paradox that lets us feel alive in the only way the body knows how.

The ancient greek empire imagined it as a gift from the gods, brought to us from the muses.

Terpsichore, the muse of dance, embodies the tension we feel, a figure suspended between grace and folly. Her name means “delight in dancing,” and she represents movement as joy, ritual, and connection.

The muses, nine sisters born of Zeus and Mnemosyne, governed the arts, sciences, and every act of creation.

Each muse embodied a distinct realm: Calliope sang through epic poetry, Clio preserved history, Erato whispered love songs.

Terpsichore, lyre in hand, taught humans to move—to celebrate, to mourn, to connect with something beyond words. She turned rhythm into worship and motion into language.

For the Greeks, to dance was to invoke the divine.

Ritual dances called down gods and honored ancestors, weaving the mortal into the eternal.

But the beauty of Terpsichore’s domain was that it wasn’t confined to sacred spaces.

Dance spilled into the streets and festivals, where joy and chaos blurred the lines between heaven and earth.

In those moments, every stumble and twirl carried the weight of something larger—a sacred absurdity.

This paradox remains.

Dance today is no less divine and no less ridiculous.

In the dark corners of clubs and amongst festival crowds, bodies sway in time to beats they can’t control - finding unity in motion.

In living rooms, children spin until the world blurs, laughing at the sensation.

It’s not about mastery.

Dance refuses to be perfected because it isn’t meant to be.

Its power lies in its imperfection—in the way it lets us be both awkward and beautiful, both human and divine.

Dance is a rebellion against stillness, a celebration of motion for its own sake.

It doesn’t take itself too seriously, even as it brushes against eternity.

The divine and the absurd are not opposites—they are partners, always in rhythm, always in step.

Imitation as Art

Dance begins with imitation.

A mirrored step, a borrowed rhythm, a movement seen and claimed.

In the act of copying, we draw a line between ourselves and others, not to separate, but to connect.

Mimicry is a kind of unspoken language, a way to say, I see you. I understand you.

Humans are natural imitators.

From infancy, we learn by mirroring—expressions, gestures, even the cadence of speech.

Dance extends this instinct into the realm of art, where every movement we borrow carries with it the memory of another.

A copied move is never truly the same; it shifts through the prism of individuality. What begins as an echo becomes uniquely ours.

But why do we copy in the first place?

Because imitation feels like belonging.

To move in sync with another is to share their rhythm, to inhabit the same moment.

This is why group dances—whether on a club floor or in a ceremonial circle—feel so powerful.

They dissolve the barriers of the self, drawing us into something larger, something shared.

Yet, as much as we crave connection, we also desire distinction.

The same impulse that drives us to mimic drives us to modify.

We add a twist, a flourish, a defiance of expectation.

The copied move becomes a canvas for self-expression, a declaration that we are part of the whole but still our own.

This tension—between unity and individuality—is what makes dance so profoundly human.

Consider the evolution of a viral dance trend. One person creates a movement, others adopt it, then layer their own variations.

It mutates, grows, and becomes something entirely new.

Dance thrives on this interplay of imitation and invention, a constant cycle of influence and reinvention.

In every stolen step, there is both homage and rebellion.

Dance is never just about the body in motion—it’s about what that motion means.

A dialogue, a game, a question:

What if I do it like this?

And the answer?

That’s the beauty.

There isn’t one.

Just Animals

But are we just birds with bigger limbs, flapping to rhythms we don’t fully understand.

Like the courtship rituals of cranes or the synchronized murmurations of starlings, our movements are instinctive, primal.

But unlike them, we dance for more than survival—we dance for meaning.

For animals, dance is a function: attraction, territory, hierarchy.

A peacock fans its feathers in an explosion of color, declaring its vitality to a potential mate.

Bees perform a precise waggle to map the distance to nectar.

Their movements are deliberate, purposeful, and ultimately pragmatic.

Humans, too, dance to connect, to bond, to attract—but something else drives us, something less tangible.

We don’t just perform a series of moves; we choreograph questions.

Why does this feel good?

What happens if I lose control?

Will they see me?

Will they understand?

Dance becomes a kind of existential experiment, where the body takes over the questions the mind is too afraid to ask. It is chaos made deliberate, the madness of the unknown brought into physical form.

And unlike birds or bees, we layer individuality onto instinct.

A bird’s courtship dance doesn’t change—it’s passed down unaltered, generation after generation.

But humans reinvent the dance every time.

A move is never static; it evolves with each new dancer.

What began as survival has turned into self-expression.

This is why we dance.

It’s an act of defiance against the limits of the body and the rules of biology.

We don’t dance just to mate, or eat, or survive—we dance to declare our existence.

It’s no longer about utility; it’s about creativity, about possibility.

Where animals move to meet their needs, we move to transcend ours.

In dance, we escape the boundaries of our bodies, stepping outside the narrow logic of survival.

We become more than instinct; we become art.

And yet, as we pirouette into the unknown, we are reminded that we’re still animals—awkward, absurd, reaching for something beyond us.

To dance is to be caught between worlds: primal and divine, survival and meaning, earth and sky.

Transcended movement

Dance

It’s more than motion; it is the rhythm of what it means to exist.

It is rebellion and prayer, instinct and invention, belonging and individuality.

From the fires of ancient rituals to the flashing lights of modern clubs, the body has always sought to move, to express, to feel alive.

We dance not just to survive, but to create.

To find meaning in the absurd, to celebrate the contradictions of being human.

Awkward yet divine, fleeting yet eternal.

Dance refuses to be pinned down; it flows, it evolves, it escapes.

Every step, every sway, is a declaration: I am here, I am alive, I am part of something larger.

In the act of dancing, we connect—to each other, to ourselves, to something beyond comprehension.

It’s not about mastery or perfection; it’s about surrender.

Dance gives us permission to exist in the space between chaos and grace, to explore what it means to be human through the movement of our bodies.

So we move, not to find answers, but to ask better questions.

We spin into the unknown, choreographing meaning from the void, transforming instinct into art.

Dance reminds us that in our imperfection, in our absurdity, there is beauty.

There is life.

We don’t dance to make sense of it all.

We dance because nothing makes sense without it.

What I’m Making

I’m deep in painting at the moment, hopefully I have something special to share with you soon.

For those of you that like my fun stuff - mirrors and installations

I hope this more ‘serious’ art is a gateway into the deep murky layers of art that they don’t teach in schools.

It’s my best work.

What I’m Preparing

The giveaway went well…

Wild….

I’ll do another next week and email everyone who won a mirror this week to sort out delivery….

Thank You…

I am incredibly grateful

Poets Corner

Dance

ONE two three ONE two three

An endlessly waltzing recurring refrain,
Swaying with notes of the
Flugelhorn's weep.

Summoning, half a step,
Half a cup, half a heart - empty,
Half a turn, half a mind,
Half full with memory.

Nights spent with you,
In Sketches of Spain.

- Thomas May

Final thoughts

We don’t dance to make sense of life—we dance because life makes no sense without it.

Love you loads,

R