After watching Disney’s latest movie Soul, I was struck by how many life lessons emerged that matched those that I learnt along my own dance journey, and how “finding your spark” isn’t always what you might think it might look like.
Soul is the story of a talented jazz pianist called Joe, who works as a middle school band teacher but dreams of landing his dream gig playing in a jazz band. After an accident in which he dies, Joe’s soul is transported to the “Great Beyond”. But along the way he ends up in the “Great before” where souls are prepared before going to earth. He is accidentally paired as a mentor to the rebellious No. 22 and ends up learning more about his purpose than he could have ever imagined.
In my case, I leaft my 9-5 job behind to learn how to dance as part of a journey to find my “spark”, but my decision was never about becoming a professional dancer or becoming highly skilled in my passion. Just like in the movie, it was about finding purpose and meaning. Here are five lessons that stood out to me:
Dance is my passion, but it isn’t my purpose. I have no ambition to become a professional dancer, I dance because it helps me live out my purpose: to discover myself, others, and the world. To discover the stories behind each dance and their people, to share different perspectives on life through writing, videos and photos, that can inspire others to discover small ways to live more fully and more meaningfully.
When Joe is handed an envelope by the school principal offering a full time position with health insurance and a pension, he knows that this is what society defines to be a success, but it isn’t what success means to him. In my case, dance helped me realise that success was more than a job title, a status, or a salary, but simply living a happy and meaningful life out of auto-pilot where you enjoy each day on your own terms.
Once Joe gets his big break performing Jazz on stage as part of a professional jazz quartet, he realises that this achievement wasn’t his spark in the end. For me, learning how to dance various dance styles, while enjoyable and nothing short of incredible, was never the end goal. My spark came from connecting to myself – my own body and soul, to a movement and moment, to my dance partners, and to local communities. Dance was the tool that allowed me to live out those connections.
No. 22 teaches Joe that our “spark” actually comes from simple everyday things – from watching leaves flutter in the breeze to watching people laugh in the streets. Appreciating small, and simple aspects of daily life requires us to focus on the here and now, and to be fully present in the moment – something that dance helped me work on immensely by being “in my body”, focusing on nothing other than my breath, balance and movement to the music.
When Joe is given a second chance to live on earth, he is asked “How are you going to spend your life?” to which he replies “I’m not sure, but I do know that I’m going to live every minute of it.” So often we let each day slip by without questioning what we would like to learn or feel that day. Dancing taught me how to live fully through meaning and purpose by searching for connection, and it’s the days where I set that intention that I truly live out my “spark”.
You can watch Soul on Disney plus and enjoy a heart-warming movie to brighten up your day, and ask yourself the question: “How are you going to spend your life?”
To learn more about my own dance journey and how it helped me discover my “spark”, you can pre-order my upcoming book Finding Rhythm, or visit my virtual studio and nightclub to support artists struggling in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you for visiting my site and wishing you your very own Bailando Journey 
Behind every dance, there is a story. This book will take you dancing from New York to Buenos Aires, immersing you in the local culture, history, and happiness with every dance step. Aliénor Salmon is represented by Gregory Messina of the Linwood Messina Literary Agency.
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