An Exigeant Vision

Exigency is a good word - that combination of need and urgency, that mad glint in the eye of someone who's been bitten by the bug. I've seen it a thousand times; witnessed how it stokes in its bearer the must to be equipped for the social space of liberation that is the dance floor.

The exigent vision is one of Preparation. "I have to be ready! What do I need?"

Moves, combinations, timing, lead, follow, styling, more styles, shoes... smile!

For these souls, the pressure of the beginning is relentless. And even when it starts to diminish during the ascent up the evolutionary slopes, the view to the summit remains the same - the vision, no longer exigeant, nevertheless remaining one of Preparation.

I see it as I take a mysterious partner's hand. She's exquisitely prepared, but she's not there. I recognise the setups from a local school; flawless pivot technique from an LA DVD; arm styling of a World Champion; a sensuous neckroll from a lambada class; smooth rhythmic interpretation brought from the East Coast; sinuous Duplessey-like hips, and wonderful smile that barely touches her eyes...

Because she's too busy being ready. And she has been since she started. I'd know the same too, of mysterious men, if I'd been her and known to look.

Perhaps you've made out my artifice - where a narrator assumes a mantle of dominance by referring to the Other as fragments. It's the same trick used in the songs we dance to: "Magia de tus besos" [The magic of your kisses] by Grupo Niche and "Esos Tus Ojos Negros" [Those dark eyes of yours] by Pete "El Conde" Rodríguez.

I'm embracing a collage of beauty: a collection of pieces of a perfect partner. And I have yet no inkling who she is; only the narrators she's chosen to take from. The Exigent Vision leaves us, women and men equally, submissive to Preparation.

And what of a vision of Identity where we ask, "Who am I? What do I need to be me?"

When do we decide to knit the fragments into a whole and speak our own narrative?

Who knows of the difference, and that a choice can be made?

"The young have no time for philosophy, the elderly have no time for anything but philosophy" says Joe, friend and one-time DJ and conguero, paraphrasing from a classical thinker. He expresses it to his students as, "the young are concerned with the techniques, the old are concerned only with content". Joe's interpretation reveals the relationship of 'philosophy' as content; and 'elderly' as maturity in our modern times.

In this instance I would express,

"The young have no time for philosophy, the elderly have no time for anything but philosophy";

as,

"The young pursue every means to be ready, the mature seek to be clear about who they are".

I spoke earlier of the tension between Identity and Preparation, and of taking the Experience of it dancing (see A Vision Statement). Before then, I'd not been effective in articulating to myself the reasons why, on solely altruistic dance grounds, some people would prefer to share a dance with certain others. Vision is part of the answer.

Dance is informed by Music in the most unexpected of ways.

Yeo Loo Yen