Knowing others is understanding; Knowing self is wisdom.
Force can master others, but only strength can master self.
Contentment is wealth, and serenity is treasure
Therefore,
Renounce outer force and be at ease with the world
Cultivate inner strength and trust the enduring centre
Expect a long life and die fulfilled.
This, I remember watching as an adolescent. A youth of the aggressive, sullen type, and full of testosterone. I’d heard the growing fuss surrounding Torvill and Dean and eventually caved in to curiosity. Against my peer group’s expectations, I watched. In silence I sat, stunned, mesmerised by this dance and its music. A performance that was both powerful and hypnotic . I felt a deep power never before felt. What exactly was going on? It took time to figure this out.
Art connects and moves. It cuts to your core and this is its power. A power, like the tao, that’s subtle but strong. Ever elusive, ever evasive, its essence skates around your senses. This artistic performance pummeled my naive prejudice and forced me to grow up emotionally. I rapidly learned that I was captive to culture and Art represented escape. An escape from social roles, rigid rules, and cultural impositions. Through Bolero, I’d glimpsed the sense of natural freedom, a freedom long forgotten, erased through the conditioned controls of contemporary society. But, now, magically, re-awakening.
Ravel’s Bolero is mesmerising music, particularly when accompanied by the spellbinding symmetry of Torvill and Dean. Its ethereal quality evoked, then distilled into concrete form through dance. The ebbing and flowing of music and dance, embraced together, in sensual symmetry, a continuous flowing dialogue between Yin and Yang and a unity within duality. That’s the tao of Bolero.
Torvill and Dean’s performance reveals an intuitive rationality; a choreographed experience that celebrates the risk within trust, grace within strength and the dynamic sexuality within us all. Its character is naturalness and spontaneity and like the tao, it points, however momentarily, to original freedom. The freedom that comes from the courage to be yourself and express this, naturally. I’m so grateful I discovered so young, the liberating power of Art.
Thank you Torvill and Dean for making this possible.
References:
Torvill and Dean: ‘Bolero’, 1984 Winter Olympics, Sarajevo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravel
The New Lao Tzu, Ray Grigg, 1995, Charles E Tuttle Co., Inc.
The Tao of Torvill & Dean
The Tao
Knowing others is understanding; Knowing self is wisdom.
Force can master others, but only strength can master self.
Contentment is wealth, and serenity is treasure
Therefore,
Renounce outer force and be at ease with the world
Cultivate inner strength and trust the enduring centre
Expect a long life and die fulfilled.
This, I remember watching as an adolescent. A youth of the aggressive, sullen type, and full of testosterone. I’d heard the growing fuss surrounding Torvill and Dean and eventually caved in to curiosity. Against my peer group’s expectations, I watched. In silence I sat, stunned, mesmerised by this dance and its music. A performance that was both powerful and hypnotic . I felt a deep power never before felt. What exactly was going on? It took time to figure this out.
Art connects and moves. It cuts to your core and this is its power. A power, like the tao, that’s subtle but strong. Ever elusive, ever evasive, its essence skates around your senses. This artistic performance pummeled my naive prejudice and forced me to grow up emotionally. I rapidly learned that I was captive to culture and Art represented escape. An escape from social roles, rigid rules, and cultural impositions. Through Bolero, I’d glimpsed the sense of natural freedom, a freedom long forgotten, erased through the conditioned controls of contemporary society. But, now, magically, re-awakening.
Ravel’s Bolero is mesmerising music, particularly when accompanied by the spellbinding symmetry of Torvill and Dean. Its ethereal quality evoked, then distilled into concrete form through dance. The ebbing and flowing of music and dance, embraced together, in sensual symmetry, a continuous flowing dialogue between Yin and Yang and a unity within duality. That’s the tao of Bolero.
Torvill and Dean’s performance reveals an intuitive rationality; a choreographed experience that celebrates the risk within trust, grace within strength and the dynamic sexuality within us all. Its character is naturalness and spontaneity and like the tao, it points, however momentarily, to original freedom. The freedom that comes from the courage to be yourself and express this, naturally. I’m so grateful I discovered so young, the liberating power of Art.
Thank you Torvill and Dean for making this possible.
References:
Torvill and Dean: ‘Bolero’, 1984 Winter Olympics, Sarajevo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravel
The New Lao Tzu, Ray Grigg, 1995, Charles E Tuttle Co., Inc.
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