When I think of witnessing dance in an everyday environment two places immediately spring to mind, very clearly and loudly, that at once fall into sharp contrast with each other and, at the same time, compliment one another.

The first is a children’s playground. Children laughing and spinning on a merry-go-round, holding onto the edge of the frame and seeing how far they can lean outwards, vying for it to go faster and faster to belligerent parents. Cheshire cat smiles spread across their faces - pure enjoyment. Their bodies exuberant with the pleasure, free and uninhibited in their movements and gestures. Others on swings - reaching forward with their legs, as if to grasp the air to bring them higher and higher, then leaning backwards with the back sweep of the swing, feeling free to fall into the movement and fly through space. Eyes wide, looking out at the world. Spontaneous games teasing spontaneous friends, exploring and tuning into their environment, responsive to each other - running, skipping, hopping, jumping, falling, rolling, laughing, shouting, the giving and withdrawing of their bodies, light, fearless, fluid, open to connectivity and each moment, brimming with possibilities, desperate not to go home, their whole lives infinitely ahead of them...

Each child and each climbing frame, swing and slide creates it’s own musicality, it’s own part in the playground symphony. Bright colours, bright energies, vibrant, vibrating. Jazz gregariously climbs out through the visual texture and breezes through the air, winking to the drums, the horn section and the percussionists on its delightful way. Giggles and cries of excitement ignite a giddy melody that infectiously bubbles and bursts like stardust through the atmosphere. The swaying of the swings to and fro and the up and down of the see-saw forms a beat, a tick-tock that reverberates against of hum of the mothers, the accompanists, sitting beside on benches, nattering as they rock pushchairs back and forth, back and forth, lulling babies to sleep, pillowed in contentment in amongst the energy and noise, the marriage of metal and flesh that brings such joy and happiness to their elder siblings.

In stark and striking contrast the second scene that dances beside this: early morning commuters on the tube, longing to get the day ahead over and to get back home. A visible white noise from numbed exertion, the drain of the rat race, illuminates the carriage. One hundred plus fluorescent silhouettes, a well stocked market, suited and booted, armoured in sharp crisp black and blue attire, though bruised from their 9-5 mentalities and physicality’s (mental-ties/physical-ties). The embodiment of unfulfilled souls, quietly aching to climb out of boxed-in finite time schedules and life-long meetings, in-a-void-able and deeply-pressing. Reluctantly jammed together, tightly squeezed, an enforced intimate soiree with strangers. So little air, suffocating any space, choking any room to move, to breathe. No jazz here. Instead, squashed cheek-to-cheek, greasy barnets and sweaty armpits fight for a neighbours face, protected by faithful newspapers and books that thankfully shield from eye contact. A sea of busy heads disconnected from bodies. Closed and unaccommodating. Muscles clenched and thoughts fixed, a staunch defence on personal space that provides a constant and unnerving beat; “I will have a seat”, “I will have a seat”, “I will have a seat”… ”I mustn’t be late”, ”I mustn’t be late”, ”I mustn’t be late”…

Silently chanting the same mantras and cocooned in this metal case, the commuters unknowingly become one body mass, as they rock and rattle through the dark dank stagnant underground beneath the city. And despite holding tight every now and then are, for a few moments, beautifully coerced out of their ridgety as the train swerves and grinds to a sudden halt. Loosing their (internal) grip they jump, stumble, fall out of their enclosed knitted self and onto the laps of others, though are just as quick to gather themselves and return to their crisply ironed protective (shell) suits. For me, this falling out of, this chasm, imposed by the unpredictable movements of the train that provocatively goads them away from their resistances and entices a brief form of release, is at the heart of the dance. This uninvited and unexpected unearthing begs the question: what would happen if our “dancers” completely surrendered to the moment and let their dearly held composures slide? What might be revealed and exposed? What might we then be privileged to see?

In each of these environments the dances lie within the relationships, the movements, the spaces and the rhythms. They can be witnessed in any playground full of children and on any busy commuting train. Both are dependent on numbers of participants – it would not be the same with one child on a swing or a couple of people on a tube – though neither requires the same group of children or commuters to create the dance. The magic comes from the interplay between each participants genuine and immediate responsiveness (or lack of) to their given environment and where they posit themselves within it. The dynamics of how they do so makes every playground and tube train dance unique and individual.

Within each setting, each framework, there are similar integral tensions at play - a push and pull, a give and take - that resonate between personal space and boundaries, freedom and confinement, communicated in both spoken and silent dialogues; “would you like the next go?” “would you like to sit down?” to “give me that swing, it is my go”, “this is my space, my seat” and so forth. And, though seemingly a world apart, it is these physical negotiations of space, how they manifest, what breathes from them and how their energies and chemistry’s echo, that makes the unlikely juxtaposition of these two enchanting “dances” so vital and fascinating to contemplate side by side.

I wonder if these impromptu dances would work if they were instead choreographed and “performed” by a group of “proper” dancers? What kind of interpretation and expression would they offer? And whom would we gain more pleasure and inspiration from watching - the prepped dancers or our commuters and children in their unassuming roles? Would the dances communicate something different and what might this be? Would we then “be allowed” to label them as works of art or can we do so already? And are they more or less significant when we reference them as such? Or do we want to simply enjoy them for what they are rather than commodify and package them? We also need to consider, in their “purer” formations, how we choose to “place” ourselves in our viewing: as an “observer”, perhaps a “critic”, and sit outside of the “frame” or become part of the picture too? Are we just an onlooker watching the children or do we join them, get on a swing and share their joie de vivre? Do we bury our head in a book and for, a while, escape our dancing partner’s gaze (doubles glazing!)? Or, instead, dare to make eye contact with our commuter “friends” and enter “their” space? Or perhaps we step into our choreographer’s shoes and ask each party to swap, putting the children on the train and commuters in the playground? Now that would be a romantic sojourn!

From exchanges with our neighbours over a cup of tea to ironing the washing, from machines being operated in a factory to fish swimming in the sea and the waxing and waning of the moon, we are constantly immersed in dances such as these every day in every moment whether awake or asleep. Their rhythm and flow forms part of the life-blood, pulse, heartbeat of the world, and deserves not to be glimpsed at though is sadly commonly blindly taken for granted. And, as both at once indivisibly observer and participant, we should be honoured to witness, with all our senses, such proud and rich displays of glorious creativity that we bring to life and engage in within our daily lives.