My 19-year old son told me I had to listen to this TED Talk. "It's about dance, Dad," he said in order lure me into watching it with him.
This TED Talk, by Sir Ken Robinson, is as inspiring as many of the TED Talks--and funny, too. The concluding remarks bring together his thoughts on education's propensity to kill creativity, and he used dance as the example of how lopsided our educational system is. Another point is that creativity itself is just as important as literacy. His lecture, "Do schools kill creativity?" ends with an anecdote from a book he is writing, called Epiphany, which is a collection of conversations with successful creative souls who accidentally discovered their creative centers (very much in spite of teachers and schools). What would an academic professor say about dance? That it is important? It is!
Tango, I feel, has helped me rediscover my creative center in many areas outside the arts, and many whom I know through tango will say the same. Sir Robinson is an educator and is not against schools or teachers but methods that kill creativity.
Click on the video clip below, or you can go directly to the concluding remarks about dance by clicking on the link I provide at the very bottom of this post.
This is the LINK or cut-and-paste this link into your browser: http://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY?t=8m37s
Now you may think this is merely interesting, that dance might be important as an aside, quite separate from the "hard sciences." Perhaps the bottom of education will be the foundation! You must now take the time to see this next video clip, "Dance your Ph.D." I watched this video a while back, and both videos together have a very powerful synergistic effect.
Before you watch it, consider my life mission: Tandem improvisational movement, as expressed in tango, may lead to the solution or amelioration of many somatic and psychological disorders. I don't know. You tell me: Have you found a cool dance hobby, or has dance allowed you to discover yourself? I believe that tango is not merely a nice hobby and is certainly not an "addiction." It is a key to something very mysterious and marvelous in discovering yourself and those around you.
Thanks for the videos! Fascinating...
ReplyDeleteFrom this blog, a checklist for deciding whether something is an addiction or a bad habit:
- They dominate thoughts and behaviour,
- They change the way we feel,
- You need more of them to get the same initial effect,
- You suffer withdrawal when they are reduced or removed,
- They conflict with our everyday responsibilities, whether at work or socially.
- After abstinence, the pattern of behaviour reasserts itself.
By this criteria, tango can certainly be an addiction.
So you have some other criteria? Could you present it?
Mikko... I am not sure that a discussion of addiction belongs on the comments to this particular post. Let me address your question briefly: You have supplied a list of feelings that mothers and fathers have about their children:
ReplyDelete- They dominate thoughts and behaviour,
- They change the way we feel,
- You need more of them to get the same initial effect,
- You suffer withdrawal when they are reduced or removed,
- They conflict with our everyday responsibilities, whether at work or socially.
- After abstinence, the pattern of behaviour reasserts itself.
Please read the concluding remarks of the blog. If you do not agree, then we can just leave it at that.