World Dance Day
29 April 2011
Photo of ADTA Outdoor Performance, Portland, OR, 2009, Photographer Tom Ohling
For the greatest part of the history of mankind dance was taking place outdoors. People would gather in forest glades, village squares, churchyards, or on threshing floors, to enjoy dancing for hours on end. Nowadays dance is mostly taking place in ballrooms, clubs, theatres, school halls, studios and discotheques.
This year we propose making a step towards nature by celebrating World Dance Day in open spaces: streets, squares, parks, stadiums, beaches, parking lots, clearings - anywhere under the sky.
The urge to dance is a natural impulse, dancers worship nature in their way, they connect with the universe and feel its juices trickle into them.
All through the year we teach dance, we rehearse, we perform within four walls. On this special day dedicated to dance, let us mark the difference by practising, teaching or performing for everyone to see. It might be cold and rainy, the floor is certainly not good enough, the wind takes the music away, but the beauty in those movements and the joy on those faces will brighten the hearts of the spontaneous audience of passers-by.
Prof. Alkis Raftis
President of the International Dance Council CID
UNESCO, Paris
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