Introducing: Dance Duck

Last weekend I went to Montreal with some friends and we went to a great Fringe Festival show called Dance Animal Presents: Dance Animal. Inspired, we all created our own dance animal personas. This is the bio of my friend Dance Duck. I think it (and she) is beautiful.

Close your eyes and imagine a duck in motion.

You’re probably picturing a duck walking; her awkward waddle painfully amusing. Or perhaps you’re imagining her flying – encumbered by her bulk as she lifts, dragging her webbed-feet like landing gear as she approaches the water.

But you see, ducks are designed neither for walking nor for flying. They have none of the gracefulness of their long-legged bird cousins on land, or of their sleek cousins in the air. They don’t step effortlessly through the marsh grasses like the snowy egret. They don’t soar like eagles or dip and dive like barn swallows.

And yet, the duck is not sorry that she waddles and flies heavily, because she knows that ducks are designed for floating. The essence of a duck in motion is actually stillness. The duck is moved only by the medium upon which it floats. Water.

Stillness can be defined in any medium. It is darkness to light. It is blankness to color. It is silence to noise. These are not opposites – darkness is the beginning of light and the end of light. Blankness is the beginning of color and the end of color. Silence is the beginning of noise and the end of noise. Stillness is the beginning of motion and the end of motion. The duck is still and yet a part of motion.

I’ve always been aware that I am a person of stillness. When the light is bright, I stand in the shadows. When the noise is great, I am silent. When the color is strong, I seek the solace of muted tones.

But I didn’t realize that my stillness was necessary, that I was necessary, that I was Dance Duck until Dance Tiger looked deep in my eyes – crossing the distance from her place on the stage to my seat. Yes, my seat in the shadows as far from the motion and noise and light and color on the stage as I could sit. When her gaze reached me there, I realized that indeed I was Dance Duck, destined to celebrate the stillness that is necessary to the motion and the noise.

You will see me on the stage with my Dance Animal friends, STILL – but not unmoved by the music. And you’ll understand that without my stillness, the motion is meaningless. My friends will dance and I will float. I am Dance Duck and I am necessary.