What is dance?

"What to you does dance mean?" she asked me this question today.
I thought I knew the answer so well....but the more i started thinking about it, the more I realized that the true understanding of dance could only be experiential, as to me it was like a feeling, an emotion....so hard to describe since it could only be felt. It was kind of like asking me to describe what happy or sad or estatic was.....it has to be felt, there is no description.
But, I wanted to attempt to explain it in some way through the English language. So i attempted to look inside and see what it was that I felt I was trying to move towards in the past one and a half months that I had been involved with contemprary dance on a regular basis.
Dance is something that has always been part of me. Its like one of those things you carry with you in every vein of your body....you feel its pulse whenever you breathe, whenever you sit. Sometimes my body would dance even if there was no music....for dance does not actually need music....it is a song that your soul sings using the body as an instrument. Dance in my eyes is the most divine use of the human body. All the imperfections of the physical form dissapear, the body is no more related with any of the sexual or physical connotations, but rather it is now dwelling through dance in the realm of the unknown, of the non-physical, of that dimension which can only be experienced and not talked about. Dance is simply letting your body flow in tune with the song the cosmos is playing for us.
In fact the last month or so that I've been doing contemprary dance....it has probably been one of the most blissful experiences of my life. If anyone wants to get in touch with a part of themselves that lies very deep within, if anyone wants to unlock the creativity that has been trapped for so long, if anyone wants to free oneself from the inhibitions and confines of their own identity....dance........just dance...........it is the most beautiful experience to let the body just flow.
I also came across so much stiffness in my body as i began this journey. Contemprary dance requires a great amount of flexibility, around which the moves are created. Initially, my body broke down every time after class. But I didnt give up and even now my hip joints and back is killing me......but the lightness that i feel with so much of the stiffness in the body and mind gone is hard to put in any kind of words. The different activities and exercises that are done contain an unbelievable potential to develop concentration and focus. I already find myself so much more aware of things around me than I was earlier.
Dance to me is like an exploration of our own selves - our thoughts, emotions, lows, highs, using our body as an instrument of expression. It is an inward journey that we can take others (the audience) with us into. It can be used to tell a story, bring out the characters, their expressions, their thoughts, their aches and pains, their joys and ecstasy - the dancer must herself feel these in their own insides so that they can also connect the soul of others with the feeling.
Dance.........it allows human beings direct touch with that which we call the ultimate, that what some of us call god.