International Dance Day 2015, 29th April

The official message for

Dance Day

29 April 2015

    A century ago famous Russian organizer Sergei Diaghilev revolutionized ballet by inviting the most talented painters and musicians of his time to contribute to his performances. I have the impression that present day choreographers neglect the other arts, do not feel the need to present their creations alongside their equals in other fields.

   I am sure audiences would appreciate more arts included in dance performances, starting with the classical arts: painting, sculpture, theater, music, poetry, architecture, as well as more modern forms like photography, cinema, multimedia, lighting design, sound design. Let me go further in proposing to enrich choreography with the humanities (history, literature, philosophy and linguistics). Personally I would particularly enjoy storytelling, martial arts, and - I mean it very seriously - culinary arts.

    There is nothing new to it, ancient Greeks in their symposia combined all the above. After 25 centuries we could return to the idea that a complete performance combines as many arts as possible.

    This year the International Dance Council CID joins forces with a sister organization to celebrate Dance Day. The International Association of Art IAA/AIAP is a non-governmental organization whose offices are next to ours at UNESCO. Our common proposal is to combine dance with painting, drawing, sculpture or other forms of creative work in the visual arts.

    Many thanks to Ms. Rosa-Maria Burillo from Mexico, World President of IAA/AIAP, who mobilized artists from dozens of countries suggesting they cooperate with choreographers, dancers and dance teachers in common events: performances, exhibitions, happenings, flashmobs, worship meetings, therapeutic sessions and (why not?) banquets!

Alkis Raftis

President of the International Dance Council CID

UNESCO, Paris

 

Message of International Dance Day 2015

Israel Galván's Message

Carmen Amaya, Valeska Gert, Suzushi Hanayagi, Michael Jackson...I see them as energy-generating turbines and this makes me think about the importance of choreography on that energy of the dancer. The important thing is probably not the choreography, but specifically that energy, the whirlwind which it triggers.

I imagine a Tesla coil attracting them all and emitting a healing ray and causing a metamorphosis in their bodies: Pina Bausch as a praying mantis, Raimund Hoghe converted into a dung beetle, Vicente Escudero into a stick insect and even Bruce Lee into a centipede.

I danced my first duo with my mother, seven months pregnant. It may seem an exaggeration. Although I almost always dance alone, I imagine that I am accompanied by ghosts which make me abandon my role of "dancer of solitudes". Did Didi-Huberman not mean to say: of soleares songs.

When I was small I didn't like dance, but it was something that came out of me naturally and easily. Almost instinctively. Over time I realised that dance healed, it had an almost medicinal effect, it helped me to not be so introverted and opened me up to other people. I have seen the image of child ill with ebola being healed through dance. I know it's a superstition, but might it be possible?

Afterwards, dance ended up becoming an obsession which filled my hours and which makes me dance even when I remain still, immobile, thus separating me from the reality of things. I know this isn't good, bad or necessary but ... that's the way it is. My daughter Milena, when I'm sitting still on the couch, thinking about my things, with my own murmur, says to me: dad, don't dance.

And the thing is that I see people moving when walking down the street, when calling a taxi, when moving in their different ways, styles and deformities. They're all dancing! They don't know it but they're all dancing! I would like to shout to them: there are people who still don't know! We're all dancing! Those who don't dance are unlucky, they are dead, they do not feel or suffer!

I like the word fusion, not as a marketing word, a confusion to sell a certain style, a brand. Better fission, an atomic mixture: a cocktail with the feet fixed to the ground of Juan Belmonte, the aerial arms of Isadora Duncan and the half swaying belly of Jeff Cohen in the Goonies. And with all these ingredients to make a pleasant and intense drink, which is delicious or bitter or which goes to your head. Our tradition is also that mixture, we come from a cocktail and the orthodox people want to hide their secret formula. But no, races and religions and political creeds, everything mixes! Everybody can dance together! Maybe not holding onto each other, but by each other's side.

There is an old Chinese proverb which says: "the flutter of a butterfly's wings can be felt across the world". When a fly takes flight in Japan, a typhoon shakes up the water of the Caribbean. Pedro G Romero, after a shattering sevillanas dance says: the same day the bomb fell in Hiroshima, Nijinsky repeated his great leap in a forest in Austria. And I continue imagining: a lash of Savion Glover makes Mikhail Baryshnikov turn. At that moment, Kazuo Ono stays still and triggers a certain electricity in María Muñoz, who thinks about Vonrad Veidt and forces Akram Khan to cause an earthquake in his dressing room; they move their rattles and the floor becomes covered with the tired drops of their sweat.

I would like to be able to dedicate this International Dance Day and these words to any person in the world who is dancing just at this moment. But, allow me a joke and a wish: dancers, musicians, producers, critics, schedulers, let's have a party finale, let's all dance, as Béjart did, let's dance in style, let's dance the Bolero by Ravel, let's dance it together.

Israel Galván
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