I’ve already told you of my unabiding love for dance and dancers: the body in motion, to me, is the most moving and purest of poetry.
I also love the metaphor of dance — leaning, bending, aching, twisting and stretching into the far crevices of life. Dance, to me, symbolizes how we synchronize ourselves with the music of our daily rhythms, the drumbeat of chance and the shock of the unexpected note.
Dance requires listening. It requires anticipation. It requires you to let someone else take the lead sometimes. It demands that we master control of ourselves while surrendering to what is around us.
Sometimes we overdo it and injure ourselves. Sometimes, the partnership is awkward and the lifting heavy. Sometimes, our feet bloodied and our souls battered, it is all we can do to get up off the floor.
And sometimes we find moments so transcendent, so otherworldly and so beautiful, it is all we can do to find the ground again.
David Parsons is a gifted dancer, and his Parsons Dance Group is probably my favorite modern dance company. I’ve seen the following piece performed live three times over the past 15 years — each time by a different person. It is not as achingly beautiful or stirring or lyrical as other pieces I’ve seen, but it’s about moments and tiny pitches of time — the things that make up our seconds and hours and days — and I love it for its creativity and ability to make art out of the mundane.
It’s called Caught, and, in person, it is breathtaking. It is my gift to you today; I hope you love it as much as I do.
The greatness begins at the 2:26 mark. Warning: do not watch this if you’re epileptic.
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