The Black Swan Dance

I watched the movie Black Swan a second time recently. A powerful movie of passion for dance, that didn’t fail to move my spirit as forcefully as it did the first time that I watched it.

It is the movie about a ballerina consumed with dance, who has to depict the coveted role of the innocent white swan and also its twin the guileful black swan. But she had the frigidity, a reserve in her dance that comes due to innocence and an unlived life. It made her perfect as the white swan but it prevented her from letting herself go, while portraying the sensuous black swan.

The words from her director asking her to ‘live a little’, to lose her frigidity and free herself; the incidents and competition in her life, all blow air on the dark side in her and ignite it to full flame. The result is that black takes over like a whirlwind and she dances the black swan dance in full fire and wins the audience

…but she loses herself, her life, to the act.

Her own desire to keep the role and end the one competition, her intention to meet the requirements for the role as hinted by her director; act as seeds that grow in her, that push her in a direction she was too inhibited to go in reality..and so she goes all that way in her mind. She moves swiftly from the sweet girl to the dark one, who in her stressed and twisted mind has ‘been there, done that'; murdering none else but her own self.

Are we the light or the dark or both? It is true that often in life, in order to leave our frigidity, to let go of our inhibitions, to become more at ease, we have to explore our dark side, we have to live a little; but the challenge is to not to be swept away by it and keep the balance. In life, when the dark winds blow like an unending storm we have to realize that it is the signal to stop resisting and go with the flow of life. Like a tree we have to bend in the incessant wind and not be too stiff, to avoid being broken!

Exploring the dark side is like climbing on a roller skate. If we keep the balance we can have a swifter, more graceful movement but we have to remember that the roller skate without awareness and balance can topple us over any time. The dark side is like a roller that can take over like a whirlwind and destroy all that was safely there as we walked on two feet. And so it needs a lot of control and has to be used with utmost care as we master it, and become fully aware.

The light with all its splendor and clarity, is indeed the real us, while the dark power is the tool, the roller skate, to be used carefully, a tool that when used with control can help live life with more freedom. Then as a swan we can dance sensuously with freedom and still be full of light...; be the White Swan doing... the Black Swan dance....