Art as Dialogue: Bridging Chaos and Understanding through Expression

It is the job of the artist to explore and express the Chaos. The unknown. To be the line between the unknown and the known. So, an artist or choreographer, someone in the creative field is, from my understanding, always standing with their toes in the shallow pool of chaos. Always exploring the depths. And though, it is easy to get lost within that; to swim too far out, to drown, to dig too deep in the earth's crust and feel the hell's heat from the planet's core, to get sucked into the chaos and to get pulled into that void, It is their duty to mankind and themselves to, in their way, express through their chosen median, what that chaos is, what it looks like and to give it a form for the audience to understand. 

And so paintings are a great visual representation of chaos being given a form, which can then be perceived. Dance has been left behind because there are more effective ways to give a representation. Singing and acting for example. They give form and teach us. And that's acting on many spectrums; voice acting, animation, cartoons, live-action movies, TV shows. All these writers are writing stories that actors are then giving birth to. 

Paintings are an amazing visual display because they physically show the representation of the artist's ideas. Dance is sometimes hard to interpret. Dance has many meanings. And dance is not just about the dance. It is not only a form of expression but also a collaboration between the body and sound. In a painting, art is left to the strength of the painter, the quality of the paints and his talent, but when you view the painting, all you're viewing is the painting and not the art behind it.

Dance may still serve a purpose. Greater than it could have been in the past. Dance will be the medium that is used to tell the story and to share opinions in our lifetime. Used in the hope of talking about the things that are currently condemned, weaponised in taboos, and met with cancel culture against the modern regime. 

Dance is physical. Physicality is the body. The body is biologically a representation of the individual. When we see it, perhaps that might make us uncomfortable but, perhaps we need to see it because it's a reminder of what we are fundamentally and unquestionably. I see a story of fear and unspoken courageousness. At the moment, our expression has been through voice and, I suppose, that extends to acting and singing. But more voice in terms of unfiltered online discussion. But we can't talk. Only certain people can talk,  less we find ourselves rocking the metaphorical cradle. So, we sing, we act, we paint and we dance. We don't want to sacrifice our careers. The strongest careers in the creative arts tend to be acting and singing, but these individuals cannot risk their careers. Their career is about money. Not the art. And so it is lost. It encourages losers. Dance is an expression in its purest form. I believe it has no heavy gravitas on a career. The tangibility of a dance career is, for the most part, starved. But starvation motivates the hungry wolf. It is the lack of tangibility that dancers have to the world of business that will allow it to be a form of expression in its purest form. Perhaps dance will be the underdog that allows one to express what they have since been unable to express. And the hope of it or the result of it would be that of expression itself. I fear that Dance may eventually become politicised. It will gain mass celebrity and eventually, the true art of dance and expression will be what business says it is. 

A dance should be one that the dancer doesn't even know they're doing. The dancer should understand where they're exploring, but not what they are to find. They are to be told that they are going to an art gallery or a museum but they will not know what they will find down each corridor. This is dance. This is movement. This is a true expression and much like the ocean's waves, they're consistent and perhaps similar but never the same. Thus a dance repeated may have similarities but is never the same. And that is why improvisation is not simply a skill. Still, it is the ability to let go of ego and vulnerability to enable the truest form of expression, of yourself from what you barely know, to explore what you then may find out.

Through the exploration of a creative piece, I had a couple of sets of eight, very small, that allowed me to begin simple, on the floor. And through that, through the music that I had picked, I explored my body and movement through a certain idea. And that was, “not being good enough.” “Knowing I will never be good enough.” That insecurity had never been fully explored. Had I previously passed the emotional barrier of this issue? Had I figured out my problem with that insecurity? No. That was the whole point of the dance. It was a dance about comparison. A dance about not being good enough. It was a dance about my limitations that I had. A dance for me to explore those ideas and tell that story to the audience. 

The principle was to explore a question I had not answered but a question that I understood. I knew where I was going but I did not know what I was going to find. And that is the truest form of expression. Of dance. Of movement. Of expression through the body. That told a story. A story that I was not expecting people to understand because it was not for people to understand, it was a display for me about me. So why have an audience in the first place? Simply answered I would say “to entertain”.

I would more accurately suggest that it takes more than one art form to create something visually stimulating. Painters may listen to music, dancers may draw their movements. On stage, lighting, sound, props and people all work together to often show 1 person doing one thing. But again, why express something so attached to your identity, to your being? When you deliver that (yourself and your art) to people utilizing the combination of art in its past and present form, perhaps, you are taking every opportunity from many creative sources to offer them a question. If you are lucky,  they may offer you an answer in silence or a roar of applause. Both are equal in their effect when appropriately qued.  

So why do we need to share our art with other people? Why do we need to share these with other people when exploring them to benefit ourselves? I think that thought is a manifestation of selfishness. I think purpose is derived from supporting a community; that being defined as “that of greater than one”.

And so when you express your art, to people, in your selfish exploration for self, you do it in hopes that somebody will understand something out of nothing. And that is art.