There are shortcuts to Happiness, and Dance is one of them.

,, before I could even walk, dance has been a part of me. My mom swears by the fact that I was dancing before I could walk, merrily hanging onto a coffee table, bopping around, eyes glistening with excitement as I watched Michael Jackson jamming on the TV screen. You know that ridiculous four-step-square dance ,, yeh, pretty much have me bringing those moves out to play on video cam before I could even walk more than five balanced steps, and consequently falling asleep to Dire Straits,, no silence or lullaby’s for me;) I danced everywhere, all the time,, by the age of 5 an old lady spotted me dancing like a loon in Woolies,, and it was then decided that I would be enrolled in her daughter’s dance studio. Best.Decision.Intheworld.
To fast forward and get to the point without boring anyone silly, past a huge array of DanceProductions,events, rehearsals,5-hour-every-weekday classes plus some weekends for Contemporary,Jazz,Tap&Hiphop exam training sessions,, to the age of 18, there comes what I learnt, what I love and I what I long to feel again.
The elation, sweat, tears, blood, adrenalin, perseverance, ecstasy and passion, the bonds with my dance family in our dance home, where more time was spent than in our real homes.

"Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It's the rhythm of your life. It's the expression in time and movement, in happiness, joy, sadness and envy." -Jaques D'ambroise

My dance teacher was my second mother. From her not only did I learn that fingers and eyeline were the key to the perfect leaps and core-focus and spotting would result in the perfect turns…it was so much more than that,, She taught me life-lessons, valuable concepts I will carry with me my entire life. It was through dance and her guidance- her constant push-push-pushing and wise words- that I learnt to never give up on myself,,, Believing you can do something results in succeeding in that something, -whatever the mind can conceive and believe can be achieved.. She brought out a desire for higher standards and always raising the bar, never settling, keeping a modest mind, and I quote her, “You are only as good as your last performance”. She strived to bring out our full potential, that sense of perfection,, she never gave up on us…and along with the strict technique she still always promoted our own Individual style in our own Individual bodies rather than conforming to societies norms. Dancing and living are one in the same… in teaching us to dance we were encouraged to express how we feel, and how to evoke emotions and inspiration in other people through such movement.

According to Martha Graham, Dance is the hidden language of the soul…the body’s song of either joy or pain. She also states, “Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it”. Dance is a poem, of which each movement is a word.

Saying goodbye to my dance family and dancing on stage with them for the last time in the CivicCentre last year after 13 years together, was quite honestly one of the most emotional experiences. They had been there for every high and low I’d experienced from over the years, every worst, every best, physically and emotionally. True family. But dance goes on, as life moves on… the memories and lessons won’t fade. Dance is past,present,future,, it is everywhere. It cannot be contained. Nor suppressed. Finally enrolling in Grahamstown’s Dance Studio this coming semester has led to overboard excitement…Life may just be Life again. Words don’t do dance justice,, but hey, thought I’d put some quotes in here anyway. Watching the dance vids on this post would be a much better portrayal, as the movements are, in fact, words. May the videos from Kate Jablonski’s Beyond Words Dance Company bring you as much joy as they consistently bring me. In dance, always. x



FAVOURITE DANCE QUOTE IN THE WORLD
"The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words. There are movements which impinge upon the nerves with a strength that is incomparable, for movement has power to stir the senses and emotions, unique in itself. This is the dancer's justification for being, and his reason for searching further for deeper aspects of his art." -Humphrey, 1937

GardenRouteVacFindings - "a traveller without observation is a bird without wings"-Saadi

TWENTY arb little discoveries I made over the six-week vac in the Garden Route





1- Ordering a Dom Pedro from a chain restaurant branch isn’t the brightest idea -> mixing drinks isn’t really a speciality and you may end up choking on like, 7 shots of Kahlua with a dash of milk..seriously.

2- so there is the mall,,, and,, there is the mall, and, you’ll end up bumping into every mate and acquaintance you ever had at school in a place like George,, be prepared..even people you only vaguely recognise will take it apon themselves to reunite with you in small talk.

3- Friday nights are Carouse nights=) Your entire ’09 matric year will be there:) Reunions and very merry times.End of.=)

4- Between the Best of pre-uni friends, things never change... Time,Distance-> it’s all irrelevant. The bonds and memories,, they never fade.Time stands still when you're apart, and new Amazing memories are undoubtebly made;) - movie nights, sleepless sleepovers, sushi&cocktail eves and Zanzi jols..enough said.

5- Those things that you put on the backside of your earrings to keep them on your ears? Use them, Really,, unless you’re absent-mindedly dropping your earrings around town as little treasures for small kids to find or something.. in that case?Cute.

6- Check for cracks in hotchocolate makers, preferably before you make any… or it’ll end up in a puddle on the counter and floor.

7- You miss your Rhodes homegirls and homeboys one hell of a lot…wow. Family, much? XXX

8- Vegetables at home actually taste like vegetables

9- The GardenRoute isn’t little Grahamstown. Suprisingly, you may just need a map..unless you enjoy the spontaneity of driving around foreign locations, more “misplaced” than “lost”;)

10- Any book carries more appeal than the ones you should be reading over vac for English, ie:Sozaboy. Although it must be said,, Paul Austers’ “City of Glass”= AMAZINGLY brilliant read.

11- Every song holds some sort of memory or assosciative feeling.Music.is.Life. ie [painting.life's.melodies] :)

12- My sister is best sister in the world…2 weeks of seeing her out’ve the whole year? Not long enough.

13- Stalkers really are out there, even in places like presumably secure Woolies,, use your initiative and gage the stalker-worthiness-factor of ,say…- the guy who puts your shopping or perhaps your little block of fudge into a bag, and act accordingly,,, or they will run up to you everytime they notice you in the shop, invite you for “meaningful” conversation in the Food Market about the sweetness of Fudge (in which you don’t attend) and finally pluck up the courage the third time they see you to ask you for your number (even when you escape to your mother for safety), dispite all your displays of disinterest and sarcasm. In such a situation, it’d be a good idea to mention you live hundreds of kilometres away and keep Hold of your number. When you see them calculating the potential of long distance relations, you know there is a problem. When they ask to put their number in your phone for conversational purposes (dispite the fact the only conversing you’ve had is one-sidedly listening to a guy speak about fudge), let them, and promptly delete the number after they have encouraged you to “,,keep in touch”. Other promising advice? Avoiding the shop for a while would be a good idea, unless you enjoy answering said-stalkers questions about the whole not-keeping-intouch thing.

14- Male hairdressers are the best hairdressers:) random observation, yes? But the usage of their initiative deserves some credit.

15- Slippers are a beautiful creation.

16- Finding a cousin you didn’t realise you had= amazing=)

17- When you spend so much of the year without the sea on your doorstep, make the most of the beach only 10min away. Nothing compares<3 Even if it's cold and winter, Wrap up warm and just go,,it's beautiful.

18- People tend to get rather patriotic about the uni they go to;) And speak in said lingo. Face it: Whatever uni you go to will be the BestUniInTheWorld to you. But R H O D E S.. pretty much the best in the universe;)haha

19- Some things aren’t constant. As my dance teacher always told us, “You’re only as good as your last performance”, in terms of general life and the footie.. once being the best doesn’t mean you’ll always be the best. Sometimes, underdogs come out tops. Not everything is predictable. And cheers to the unpredictable;)

20- Value every moment. Spend time with everyone you love. People,Loved ones,, they don’t live forever.. So LIVE.LAUGH.LOVE… and mostly Love. Express it however you like, but just express it:) Seize the day. Carpe Diem. And all that jazz. For real though;) [Love]

"..at the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.."-Plato

,,so the other day I rewatched one of my favourite movies of all time, "Dead Poets Society" directed by Peter Weir in 1989. Robin Williams plays the character of John Keating, an English teacher employed at a Boy's academic high school. Rather than merely follow the English syllabus traditionally, Keating fights the concepts of a conformist, submissive society and encourages his students to rather follow their passions, individual desires, and to seize the day. Favourite movie moments include Keatings declarations of "Carpe Diem!"; telling his students to rip out the analytical introduction in their textbooks about how to measure the value of a poem, and teaching the students how to look at things in different perspectives by-humourously- encouraging them to stand on and jump off his desk. Heartfelt and emotional, the movie inspires an audience to view poetry, thinking out the box, and their own passions as anything but ordinary.



"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.And the human race is filled with passion.And medicine, law, business,engineering... these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." -Keating


I really love this quote from the movie. It follows through with that quote about the best things in life being felt with the heart. Poetry is an expression of feeling. And who in the human race does not feel? We are all poet's, all painters of our own lives, all narrators of our own stories,,, make your life worth reading, and something you would want to read, free from the pressures and expectations of others.

Cape Town Observations

Yeh, so over the vac I took a little roadtrip to the C of T and stayed with my brother in his flat,, the dates of my stay tied in perfectly with the start of the Fifa Soccer WC so the place was definetly a vibe:) In between a lot of going out, shopping, driving around Camps Bay, watching the intense games (nothing can quite describe how crazy happy and festive everyone was in the bar I was at when BafanaBafana scored the first goal of the tournament!) and a little visit to Groote Schuur, I naturally made a lot of observations which can pretty much be summed up in this note...

You know South Africans have true festive SA Soccer SPIRIT [=)] …
-when you are woken up by Vuvuzelas blearing at 3am,4am, -the general 24hour demo’s of festive patriotism.
-when you are in the minority if: you are not wearing a BAFANA shirt, you do not have SA flag coverings for your car’s side mirrors, or you do not have an SA flag displayed somewhere on your car.
-when you walk the streets at midnight and hear people merrily singing the National Anthem
-when you enter a restaurant/bar which cannot seat the vast amounts of people watching the game on the flat-screen TV, and people watch up to 2 hours standing with their drinks/food.
-when companies actually pay R600 for each of their staff members to own and wear a Bafana shirt
-when you find the one LAST Bafana shirt after looking around every sports shop in Three huge CT malls
-when sales assistants become SUPER happy and friendly
-when you receive your left-over lunch out in a Soccerball-themed polystyrene container

You know the world is small/ the presence of co-incidences need be questioned...
-when you bump into fellow Rhodes friends walking around Cavendish
-when you bump into one of your life-long best friends from George in YDE in Canal Walk, unconscious of the fact they’d be in Cape Town (plus finding out they too, were in the YDE at Tiger Valley that same morning)
-when your Engineer brother Ben just happens to be around when a guy needs help jumpstarting his car- the guy’s name, too, being Ben.

You know society can be pretty ironic...
-when you observe seven traffic policemen help one traffic policemen spend fifteen minutes writing a parking fine for a man whose car is parked in a No-Parking zone on Main Rd, And consequently observe a traffic police van parking in the EXACT no-parking spot the fined-man’s car was in. The reason behind not being able to park in a particular place leading to the issuing of fines is clearly overlooked..

You know life is precious...
-when you meet someone at Groote Schuur hospital who’s a diabetic, asthmatic, cancer-patient minus a leg and breast, and is bubblier and more positive than the most privileged of the human race.. <3

The Beginning

..as if i didn't spend enough time writing in journals and social networking (Facebook, much?;)), i just couldn't resist getting into this whole blogging thing,, quite possibly a bad lifechoice, haha, but as Seuss once said, "If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good." =) ,, and so it is that i thought whilst walking on Wilderness beach this evening, that I may as well throw myself into something new, and why not something satisfying for the soul,right?:) What's this blog going to be about? Your guess is as good as mine,, but theres value in the mystery and the unknown and i'm keen to see where this thing leads..