Let us dance in the world

*By Gabriela Soares

It is fantastic how a simple idea can be so powerful.

A few days ago, I learned the story of an individual named Matt. A young man like many others, Matt enjoys playing computer games and lying on the couch. Matt is like most of us: he can’t dance, even though he likes it. The difference is that, one day, Matt got tired of living comfortably in his own little world. Then, he quit his job and, with the money he had saved, he travelled to Asia. On one of those trips, a friend gave him an idea: instead of taking postcard-like photographs, he should go to emblematic places and start dancing. You should remember that Matt is a bad dancer.

Matt started registering his peculiar dance in all the places that he visited. Joining these pieces, he did a video that he posted on YouTube. The impact was astonishing. The idea spread and all around the world everyone wanted to dance with Matt. That resulted in the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

The song is in Bengali. The poem by Tagore, Literature Nobel Laureate

Stream of Life

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Everyone is free to interpret its message. :-)

“We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts — namely, to live.” (Robert Stevenson)

Lastly, I’d like to leave my sincere appreciation for the invitation to participate in BIP. I hope you like it.

*Collaborator at the Manufacturing Systems Engineering Unit.