Our contributor Elena Anashina just forwarded a series of photographs with a message and "Happy International Dance Day" in the subject line. Indeed, 29 April was officially declared as such by UNESCO in the early 1980s.
It had slipped our mind again. But here it is, the official message to the International Dance Day 2014. And together with three of the photographs that Elena took last weekend at the 2014 European Youth Ten Dance and International Opens in Moscow, RUS. The others are in the Gallery.
A DANCER'S CREED
I believe in one dancefather, all-resonant
revealer of heaven and earth
and of all things visible and invisible:
Light of body,
very dance of very souls,
begotten, not made,
ever-present,
by whom all things are transfigured.
Who for us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven
before all worlds
and was incarnate in the bodies of mortals
and humanized them.
And was crucified during the consumer society,
suffered and was buried
and rises again in isolated places
where no scriptures exist.
And comes again with glory
to enliven both the quick and the dead:
whose kingdom shall have no end.
I believe in a holy dance,
lord, giver of life,
who proceedeth from independent communities
who speaks by the flesh of humans,
instead of the prophets.
I acknowledge that it constitutes a baptism
for the remission of afflictions and sins,
the resurrection of dead limbs,
and the life of the world to come.
Alkis Raftis