Is dance something you can consume? Can you sell it as a service? Where does community crossover with commerce anyway?

Once upon a time in the USA, you were a citizen. Then, suddenly you were a citizen no more. Consumer was coined as more accurate term to describe the inhabitants of the land.

The shift in semantics was decreed in D.C., probably during the Reagan years. Citizenship implies activity. Consumption is inherently passive.

Stuff, and the management thereof, is a defining feature of Western life. Ritual, ceremony, and creative expression have long taken a back seat to commerce. How all that stuff is dealt with varies, different cultures deal with it in diverse ways.

You might be a back-to-the-land purist, harkening back to simpler times. Bartering your garden veggies with your neighbors, buying only bulk ingredients in jars you bring from home, always repairing before replacing.

Or you’re a more modern person that orders food with a click, buys only ready-to-eat at the supermarket, and tosses out any household item the moment it becomes tiresome.

If you’re like me, you probably fall somewhere in between. Stuff is stuff, and nobody’s perfect. For my offspring’s sake, I hope I’m not drowning in it when my time is up.

When a society shifts to a form where community is no longer a part of commerce, there’s an unfulfilled need in folks. Could it be that conscious dance is somehow serving that need in places where it is most popular?

Going from “I want or need this” to having it appear on your doorstep with only a tap on your screen is about as abstract as you can get.

Yet in that transaction there is nary a human in the loop. At least not one that you will talk to, joke around with, or engage in any sort of meaningful way.

On the other end of the spectrum lies the vide grenier. The term loosely translates as ‘empty the attic’. These are the rituals here in France that knit community and commerce closely together.

They happen in every village during the warm weather months. When it’s your town’s turn, it’s obligatory to haul every last piece of grandma’s china, dad’s old tools, and baby’s outgrown clothes to a spot at the fair and post up for the day.

You’ll bring shade, chairs and a table. A large picnic lunch with wine. Every member of your family. In turn you will stroll around and chat with all the folks who’ve been there since the crack of dawn along with you. Far beyond a mere flea market, this is community writ large.

You might get rid of some of the junk from grandma’s attic. You’ll pack most of it home until next time. You’ll probably score a new treasure. You’ll talk to folks incessantly and you won’t look at your phone all day.

I thought about this yesterday strolling around the park in Saint-Ouen. A vast vide grenier was arrayed around a pond so that every exposante had shade. A lovely setting for a day devoted to selling off treasures.

I’ve had a vague notion that perhaps I should acquire the accoutrements of angling once again, something I did as a teen growing up in Colorado. Boys on bikes with fishing poles are a common sight here. I saw someone selling fishing gear and ran the scenarios in my mind.

I could bargain for used gear from a local fisherman and get side helping of local lore and advice, haggling for a deal in my butchered French.

Or I could search online, click my mouse, and figure out how it all works after peeling the plastic off of the packages.

My takeaway from thinking about the range of connection baked into any form of commerce is this: when there’s an opportunity to fulfill a need or want within the fabric of community, try that first.

The Loire Valley has brocantes and vide greniers, California has clothing swaps, farmers markets, and buy-nothing groups. Every region has different options to explore.

Somewhere outside the realm of ordinary commerce lies dance, fulfilling a need for community for folks feeling a lack of it locally. When you use it to add a layer to the connective matrix of a town or city, you can improve things for everyone.

Much love till next Monday!

Merci et à bientôt!

M+

ML #697

Mark Metz
Monday Love Movement Calendar