What the Body Knows

The body knows things the mind will never admit. It knows the beat before the brain counts it. It knows the turn before the thought forms. Dance is not performance. Dance is the body finally getting to finish a sentence the mind keeps interrupting. Watch the girl in the corner of the studio. The one who barely speaks, who folds into herself in every classroom, who has never once raised her hand. Watch what happens when the music starts. She unfolds. She becomes fluent in a language that doesn't require permission or grammar or the right words in the right order. Her body says everything her mouth has been saving. I have danced in kitchens at midnight. In parking lots after bad news. In the shower. In the living room with the curtains closed because the dance wasn't for anyone but me. The best dancing is the kind nobody sees. The kind that happens because the body can't hold one more feeling without moving. Every dancer knows: the floor is a confessional. You bring your weight, your history, your ache, and you give it to the rhythm and the rhythm gives back something lighter. Not happier. Lighter. And the body— that brilliant, inarticulate, honest thing— is relieved. Finally. Someone listened.