Szögi Csaba’s Message for International Dance Day

On 29 April, the whole world celebrates the birthday of French dance virtuoso, ballet master, choreographer and dance theory writer Jean-Georges Noverre, widely referred to as the Shakespeare of ballet. This is the day chosen by the Dance Committee of UNESCO's International Theatre Institute to be the International Day of Dance. Following this decision, all forms of dance in the world are celebrated annually on this day, with the aim of encouraging governmnents to better include the art of dance into the countries' educational system, from elementary school all the way to higher education. In 2017, at last, Hungary also got it own dance academy.

One and a half million years ago, prehistoric human started to hunt in groups, thus creating the first communities in a mimetic culture – a culture that ended 50 thousand years ago, when humans first started to talk. This means that for 1 million and 450 thousand years, only the body talked. During all this time, we have coded an immeasurable amount of information into our bodies, mainly because we have used gestures and dance to transmit information, to get into contact with the gods , and also to heal.

In this incomprehensibly long time, in what way have we grown different from the people of that period?

Dance is so much more than it seems at first glance. Dance is omnipresent in our lives, in boring workdays and holidays alike. We still bear the bodily codes inside us, and what's more, we have since extended this treasure kit. In other parts of the world, people still use dance to communicate with their deities, but there are also the old and new dance therapies, health preservation, fun, entertainment, art, and sport. Even commercials are loaded with dance moves, because marketing experts know exactly that if they step into the world beyond words, the effect is more powerful, and information is memorized more easily. Dance produces, radiates, and transmits energy, teaches us to get to know ourselves, teaches us self-control, demands attention to others as well as tolerance, gives us team spirit and creates communities, breeds harmony between body and soul, connects us to others as well as ourselves, and, because it was born in a preverbal world, dancers understand each other regardless of the language they speak. Our common dance moves are the imprints of man’s first cultural steps.

Today we celebrate the omnipresent dance, and the dancer coded one and a half million years ago into each and every one of us. Let’s look around, let’s discover and celebrate each of them together!

Csaba Szögi

Dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, winner of the Harangozó Gyula and Imre Zoltán awards, director of Central Europe Dance Theatre