There is always an unexpected point in a celebration where an embarrassed silence falls for a moment.
Then a tiny crack of uncertainty opens, in which the diners seem to realize the futility of the party itself. It’s just a small treacherous blow, under the belt of smiles and jokes, an imperceptible hesitation from which we recover immediately.
But as a boy I hated parties and secretly enjoyed those moments of estrangement: “Human beings have been partying for centuries, for millennia, but what the hell is there to celebrate? Don’t they see the cosmos out there, how scary and cold and terrible it is? ”
Perhaps, I said to myself – with the classic haughtiness of the adolescent who thinks he’s the first to notice certain things – perhaps it is precisely in order not to see the void, to dispel the thought of nonsense, that these pathetic fools dance and they shout and laugh like madmen!
It took me a shamefully long time, and a lot of effort, to get over this thought. To admit the colossal courage necessary for the affirmation of joy; to understand the mystery, still alive today, of the ancient Dionysian fury; to recognize that the urgency of dance is just as powerful as the need for poetry.
This year that we are denied any kind of partying, its cardinal importance is even more evident: the flesh itself seems to claim its right to be unleashed, released.
My wish, therefore, for anyone who is reading, is to soon go back to dancing together, each following their own rhythm – unique, funny, deviant, rambling, capricious, clumsy or irregular … in the face of convention, but also in the face of that universe we imagine to be cold and inhospitable.
Perhaps, dancing for no reason is just what the stars have always been doing.
KEEP THE WORLD WEIRD!
