Everyday I go for an early morning walk.
That morning, not far from my house, in front of a beautiful villa, there was this leaf dancing.
I paused to look. And to make a video.
This leaf danced calmly, happily and carefree.
I couldn’t see what was holding it in the air, the dance was simply magical!
That gave me the idea to find out more about dance and nature; what dances in nature and how.
Of course, animals are dancers! I first found that on the BBC website. Some of them are good dancers, some are not. In addition to the video on this site where you will see animals dancing, there is a list of 10 exceptional dancers from the animal world. Among them is one spider, then one whale and many others.
Some of them perform the most beautiful synchronized dances, some use dance to prepare for mating, some of them prepare stage where they will dance in a special way, some dance no less and no more than a waltz, slowly and gracefully.
And how do trees and flowers dance? For example, when the wind blows, they have no choice but to bend, to dance and be flexible in order to survive. Forest bending to the wind protect us from it, so trees dancing have a very important defensive role.
The Dancing Forest (Russian: Танцующий лес) is a pine forest in Russia noted for its unusually twisted trees. Unlike drunken forests, the trees in the Dancing Forest are twisted into several patterns, such as rings, hearts and convoluted spirals bending to the ground. The exact cause of the trees’ distortion is unknown. According to one version, the distortion is caused by the activity of the caterpillar of Rhyacionia buoliana. In the folk version, the Dancing Forest follows the movement of the sands. So it dances with a sand.
Then I started looking for flowers that dance. Again as for trees, flowers certainly dance in the wind. And flowers and plants, they love music, it has been proven that music as well as beautiful words have a good effect on flowers.
The Lonicera plant, known as Honeysuckle, has flowers that look like they are dancing together, similar to kolo.
Internet search also took me to many courses of dancing in nature, dancing in the woods with trees, dancing for flowers, etc. (just type Dance in Nature in browser, and you will see).
So, next time when you are in the forest or in the meadow, or with your pet, pay attention, there is for sure somebody dancing! 😉
Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150626-animal-dancers-that-dazzle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Forest
https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/kolo-traditional-folk-dance-01270
Photo: https://pixels.com/featured/dancing-leaves-lora-lee-chapman.html