Dance. it. Out!

[Note: Once again, I've been slacking on writing posts. Well, it's not that I've been putting off having to blog; it's just that there hasn't been anything worthwhile to write about. I prefer to blog on a sporadic basis about things that matter to me, rather than to bombard people with daily (or weekly) posts about trivial, rambling nonsense. I'm using this blog as a meditative tool to vent about my life but also to promote certain things within the city that make me happy. That entails my posts being sporadic but also having some substance to them - as opposed to them being very frequent and going on rants about "why I think winter is neat." But I digress...]

Jeez Louise...I've had a nightmarish ten days. I've been trying to juggle my 3 (!) jobs as best as possible for the past two weeks, but it's truly been getting to me. I really shouldn't be complaining about being busy with work, and I'm not. What I am frustrated with is the lack of consistency in my life. Sometimes I spend several consecutive days without much work, the weeks passing me by at a sluggish pace. Then in other instances, I barely find time to actually sit down and eat a home-cooked meal, instead relying on various snacks and leftovers to push me through the days...

I've recently felt a lot of pent-up frustrations deep inside and, for a couple of days, the feeling kept gnawing at me. I would be home doing laundry and the very act of carrying my heavy bag full of dirty clothes angered me a great deal. I've had tantrums boiling deep down, but I realized that letting them out would just come off as immature and fruitless. My lack of sleep - given my late-night job and my days spent doing work at home - has also been a factor in my bad mood. After a suffocating and hectic 10-day "job-balancing act," salvation came in the form of a concert last Tuesday - Norway's duo Royksopp, who played at Webster Hall. Before going in to the venue, me and my friend Jamie had a couple of drinks and talked about the best concerts we've been to in the past. A difficult question to answer, yes, but an interesting one to think about. What is it about a given show that truly makes it great? The band's performance? The mood you're in, or the company you're with?

Whereas I easily affirmed that the best concert I've gone to is Daft Punk at Coney Island ('07), Jamie had a harder time to come up with a solid reply. However, once the Royksopp show got underway, my "best of" list definitely shifted, and I can honestly say that this one was a spectacular concert. Like Daft Punk two years ago, this concert was the last show of their tour, and they did not disappoint. Once the encore came in, the duo kept at it for another good 30-40 minutes, and me and Jamie couldn't stop dancing. That night, all the inner rage I had felt in previous weeks dissipated as I moved rhythmically to Royksopp's beats. I emptied my mind out of all preoccupations and simply thought about nothing. I didn't care about the work that awaited me the following day, or about my lack of full-time employment in general. I cared even less about how silly I probably looked, waving my hands around as I gleefully jumped and gyrated all around. At that moment, for two hours straight, no problem or worry dampened my spirits. Jamie probably felt the same, as she also grooved like a madwoman throughout the show, but as for myself, I honestly cannot remember the last time I felt so blissfully happy or free. The feel-good rhythms of the DJ duo, coupled with the positive vibe of the crowd around us, made the experience a highly enjoyable one, and, like a soothing body massage, the dancing relaxed my whole being and relinquished all of the issues that were plaguing me.

Now I'm back to reality, of course. I still feel an overwhelming feeling of frustration that is difficult to ignore or fend off. However, at the Royksopp concert, I was made aware of something that, as cheesy as it sounds, I find very satisfying: the true power that dance can have on the human psyche/soul. Sometimes, all it takes for one to feel better about oneself is to "dance it out": to let go of decorum and constraint and simply let loose.

Here's a sampling of the excellent Royksopp concert, in order to give a hint of what the experience was like: