What seems to be a sad paradox of the present time is the fact that despite the quickening and simplification of mutual contact and communication people appear to be growing apart, as if their communal time has shrunk into a couple of fleeting moments, as if the space they perceive by their path, around themselves, was just a few meters distant from them. It saddens me at times ‒ which may be why I am so drawn to art, which defies indifference, as it builds bridges that arch over such distances, as, through it, the creative relates self-expressively to the world, with which (s)he so connects as the creative energy comes out from within, from the spiritual into the material, as if it was within him or her wherein, unconsciously and spontaneously perhaps, lay the pure power of co-existence, which expands, and a certain connectivity of a world suddenly complete.
Art is strong. It is a world in and by itself, a sphere of distinctiveness the form of which is dependent on its creator, for it is the creator who says: This is how I see the world! Thus we can look at the world through different eyes, from a unique perspective. Art is a light that transcends itself and its partakers in a life-giving force in the embodiment of our earnest longing for spiritual deliverance ‒ such art is London's Star Rover in the undying poetry of life, since, even if restricted, it will throw off its hurtful shackles and slip out of darkness. It springs from the soul that knows no physical boundaries. In this, it is larger than life ‒ at least the ephemeral physical one.
The notional realm has no end, being chiaroscuro, clair-obscur, fumbling, and reveals itself in an impalpable artistic message personified by people themselves. May my inner world be the heart and soul, may anything be my kingdom, it is the outside world that represents contact ‒ albeit not only with beautiful materialized dreams, but also with empty and needless cruelty ‒ and it is life, rhythm, motion, direction, growth. And I cannot get arrested, or I will die ‒ but now that the faraway is unfolding before my eyes and thoughts are whizzing past in the crazy of world of ephemerality, I am falling to the hard ground; now I am getting lost but without going astray as I notice a fixed point while dancing in a musical embrace.
We fear that whatever we create will be taken by time ‒ that said, as though during our life we each drew our own picture that will speak on of what we were like, thus leaving our mark on the map of the world. There exists no world ‒ we are the creators. We are footprints in the dust of roads, writings engraved in stone, echoes among mounts, ships at a stormy sea, trees reaching up to the sky, raindrops in sun heat ‒ we are life. We create, recreate ourselves, our own essence through our artistic creation. Art ‒ whether it be a paint, a sound, or a motion ‒ is a dream build upon thoughts, our mark of a gone life in infinity; art is a way toward us.
It is through art that passing moments endure, being captured, transmuted, immortalized. Not everyone will understand them, but the perceptive will try to grasp them. One must be open to get the message. Understanding dwells in the acceptance of distinctness. There is wealth and beauty to be found even in the unseen, unheard, and unnoticed. The secret lies in the art of feeling ‒ feeling art. In that, art teaches us how to live.
It is my conviction that the essense of true art inheres within its spiritual outreach. Despite working with palpable tools to self-express in the outer world, it is not only to play with superficial forms but to stem from inner wealth, shaping an immaterial energy, thus allowing the select of us create something that will exceed themselves in space and time. Something of this kind must not be marginalized or suppressed because where there is art, there is the heart ‒ and the heart is life. The artist cannot but make art, he or she must hallmark it by distinctness, put the heart into it and let it sing and weep, look for its essence. Even the best technically created harmony feels empty unless it is a living story and dream.
Uniformity is not of art's own, it is not monolithic, neither does it obey the principle of fixed delimitation ‒ the only limitations lie in our fear and humanity itself. Just as the piano has a certain number of keyboards but the music it makes is infinite, the body as a tool is delimited in space but the creative soul knows no boundaries. Thus, each of its pieces can be differently colored, like a mozaic, and into each of them another human fate or experience in many a rendition and intensity can be projected. It is such freedom of expression that endows it with expanse and development, although it has its "buts": If art is limited or, God forbid, banned, the mere miserable existence of a more or less dead form or even its demise is imminent; if it is absolutely limitless in its freedom, it can be enriched or degraded by it. In this, art reflects its creator.
Therein arises the question of authenticity. Can authenticity be referred to all that is original, an artistic act as unique as a newborn child, which is not yet another blind carbon copy of whoever or whatever? Or, does authenticity spring only from the source of a tradition that sees to the preservation of certain features to make a given creative act what it is proclaimed to be? Even if your life is intertwined with that of others, the uniqueness of your human experience is beyond doubt; thus, if you tell your story in your own words and put yourself, your true Self, into it, you, as an artist, remain genuine.
Art is my pillar. It is "the little something" that is all that suffices to make my whole world shine. As if, out of a sudden, my nameless life and faceless existence gained content and meaning. It is to me what water is to a river. It is the breath that sustains my beating heart. Music speaks to me and I do not know what it says, but I can feel it and understand, so I cannot remain motionless, with it moving my body on an emotional wave, I feel like dancing, perhaps because my inner world has never been blind to beauty or to pain either, and this world within me wants to live, open its arms to freedom and never be silenced.
Art is liberating, cathartic and healing. It is abstract in its dancing poetry, soulful and divinely inspired. With its self-expression stemming from inner imagery, divergent from any externally given or reality-based form, you, as a creative, free from any dictate, are given total freedom in authenticating and materializing your own unique percepts. The interrelationship of us and God is not necessarily religious, and I feel it on a spiritual plane as an omnipresent, all-embracing and all-permeating energy that infuses wisdom and inner guidance, animation and creative inspiration into our soul, as if the Universe was re-creating and expressing itself through us. You draw from within that which is sourced from without all there is.
To the one whose views are earthbound and conservative, whose focus is on the material and pecuniary, the world of art(ists') is "peculiar" while I am the embodiment of an impractical nefelibata who places art upon a pedestal as I weave my long-winded emotive stories. If only I could, I would devote my life to art solely but for being a soul trapped in the material world, faced with the need for a means of subsistance, not by choice but of necessity, and art is my life but not (yet) living, even in need of investment itself, so I will struggle on the material front while nurturing the dream of an artistic breakthrough. The more the one who measures any endeavor against profitability (seeing it as an end, not a means to an end) equates my creative dreams to "pointless" pursuits, the longer I dilly-dally, literally dancing around it, in fear, so, with my external and inner critic united, there you go....
The more so, amid predominant materialism, capitalism and underappreciation of art as something "dispensable", one's genuine love of art that exceeds business is applaudable. What if, to some, it is a reason to live, this making it a must? Dance is everything to me and permeates my life to the point of being synonymous with it. What would a society be without culture? It would become but soulless, empty, dead.
And yet, mine is a rebellious heart that will scream, "The critics must be silenced!" and "Carpe diem!," and go on dancing this ever-lasting dream and will not let me rest until I go and fulfill it in reality, as this calling toward artistic creation I feel so strongly drawn to is a purpose to live for that stems from undying passion and, as I would like to believe, indomitable spirit. What I see as an inevitable part of success is the cessation of living in my head and the adoption of a can-do attitude with courage, faith and trust in myself and my odyssey.
The Essence of Art © Ladanseuse
Original English groundwork undated,
text expanded upon and translated into Czech on 18.. - 19. 11. 2021 to be published bilingually on 22. 11. 2021