Dance #4: Joy

It's not all doom and gloom here at Aquinas St! This dance is a nostalgic celebration of a time, several years ago when, sat out on the balcony of a cheap Tangier apartment, you felt for a brief moment liberated, untethered from the restless humdrum of everyday existence. Of course, that feeling went away, almost as quickly as it arrived. Everything does in the end, doesn't it?

Dedicated as it is to that most fleeting of phenomena, Joy is the shortest of the dances currently taught at Aquinas St. In its brevity—a peak between two troughs—joy reminds one of life itself, a thrill of flashing light flanked at either end by an abyss. A hopeless howl into the ether, a scream in spite of it all. A moment of love, a laugh, an impossible dream. Strange, that we speak of joy as something that can be killed, when its very power is derived from its fleeting lifespan.

Still, what are we to do but chase after it with every fibre of our being? Joy is not recommended for children under 12 years, owing to the maturity of spirit and subtlety of movement required.