Because I Danced

What do some people have to say about the beautiful art of dance?

"There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good."
~Edwin Denby

"Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart." 
 ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"
~Constanze

"Dancers are the messengers of the gods."
 ~Martha Graham

"Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays." 
~George Balanchine

Dance is, as Constanze says, like dreaming. Just as most people love to dream and be dreamed about, they also love to dance and be danced for. There's an electricity in the air when a figure dances, a sort of energy, I think.
 I was recently at an event that took place in a large arena. During intermission, most people left their seats to go get concessions, or to find their place in the endless restroom lines. But, I decided to stay comfortably at my seat, and it was there that I witnessed one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. There in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the crowd, a single girl was dancing to the music that was streaming through the arena speakers. There was no one around her, or so it seemed by the way she isolated herself from the people milling about. Just herself and the music. I sat there in row 200, and I watched amazed at what she was doing. I wish I had the courage and the carefree attitude to just full-out dance in a crowd of thousands of people, like no one was watching.
So, my experience has begged the question over and over in my head, "When was the last time you danced like no one was watching?"
Its such a cliche, but such an underperformed act. Who do you know that would get up and pour their soul into a dance in front of the world, but perform it like they were the only figure in an empty auditorium? I would love to say that that person is me, and it remains my goal as a dancer to embody this carefree virtue, because, as someone told me recently, dancers tend to smile more, and be happier people in general. It makes me wonder if I danced more often like no one was watching, even though they were, and if the statement that 'dancers are happier people' is true, and if happiness is contagious, then wouldn't the people who I pretend aren't watching become happier people too? And if dancing is an external reponse to an internal happiness, then maybe those people would start dancing too, and maybe, just maybe, the world would become a happier place. Because I danced.