It has been a long time that this sentence has been lingering in my mind. And all this time I felt the need to write about it, but there has always been some kind of brake in my mind, a conflict within my thoughts when it comes to beauty …

Then, reflecting about it, I realize this conflict is the product of what I think beauty is, the result of my artistic education.
I look at myself in the mirror a third of the whole day… and has always been a love/hate relationship.
But I think it is a theme that concerns all of us, much more than we think.

We live in the prison of beauty. Slaves of appearances, self caged. We love the beautiful, we want the beauty, and the rest does not matter.
We are mesmerized in front of a mirror, which, when glancing at it superficially, reflects an unreal image. Or even if real, absent of any value beyond aesthetics.
Incapable of looking in any other direction…

What are we looking at?
What are we looking for in that image?

Sadly nowadays beauty is important (sometimes condicio sine qua non to make it) in almost every sector. In Arts, and more specifically in dance, as far as I am concerned, I am afraid it is indispensable.

I wish it was not like that, but I see it every day… and it bothers me, but what do I do to change that? Nothing.
Hence the comparison with the prison… feeling in a cage from which, as much as I want, I can not escape.

Why?

We live in search of this pleasing perfection around us, everywhere, even if this is against what we would like to be our true values.

It scares me sometimes when I find myself searching for my own reflection, even through the shop windows, as I walk down the street. And what’s worse, I see I am not the only one.

The search for this beauty has no boundaries. There is always a way to improve ourselves; and I have the impression that there is no way out, especially when I realize that is an obstacle for the rest, for what we really are.

It scares me to see talent which is not exploited, that goes to waste, only because mother nature did not abide to the rules dictated by our society. By you and me. And I find it unfair. And, despite not wanting to, I find even myself following these canons. Even more, my behavior further propagates them.

What upset me the most is my awareness. If I wasn’t conscious of all that, it would bother me less. I wouldn’t feel trapped.

I have friends that say not to give much importance to aesthetic factors, but at the end, when it comes to choosing between two persons with more or less the same talent… we know how this ends.

All of us, some more than others, have found ourselves in such a situation. We all have been through a comparison or selection based on aesthetics. And so it goes, we finally accept it.

It is said that beauty is in the inside, but for me inside there are many other things. Inside we keep who we really are, our fears, our insecurities, our strength and weaknesses. Inside lies our true value, independent of any canon of beauty.

But appearance does count and it is indeed how we present ourselves, the first part of us we show… and even though the concept of beauty is not objective, it changes with time, it continues to play a paramount role in our daily life.

It is true that if we spent less time contemplating ourselves in the mirror, or judging everyone else’s appearance, we would be less critical and, likely, happier.

Once again, I have no advice to give, nor solutions… I would in fact need someone to help me and set me free from this prison.

Are we willing to abandon this prison of beauty, to show what we really are, at the cost of risking our role in society?