Friday, January 20, 2006
DWTS Redux
Dancing With The Stars brings a smile to my face. Every time. If you have seen the PBS version of ballroom dance competition you can see now what is missing in that dreary enterprise. Joy, affirmation, fun, sexiness. DWTS is so well produced that when a dance exhibition by the professionals is shown, even that works.
John Updike once said that ice skating performances often moved him. I suppose that the dancers, there in the spotlight on the frozen impersonal expanse of ice, expressed for him the condition of our lives in some of its melancholic isolation, energy and joy. DWTS is having a similar effect on me — with more emphasis for me on the fun and affirmation of coupling; the enormous power of human connection, of the forces that run through us and pull us out of ourselves into the unexpected. Ballroom dancing at its best rides the life force as that energy expresses itself in the social sphere.
This is such a joyous and affirmative show — an antidote to the mire of daily news and deadening state of much of public life; of the endless parade of execrable examples of human behavior; of much that is regurgitated in the media. Even the competitive aspect of the show, which can often corrupt and desiccate human effort, adds a perfect balance of seriousness — the gravity of true adult play.