"As we age, we might tend to look back on our past with great nostalgia; we ached less, we looked better and maybe we had a better time being part of a tribe or movement where identity and ideology are pre-packaged and save us the effort of carving these things out for ourselves?
Dancing Bear is a piece that examines these ideas, but also challenges them. Historically, a dancing bear was there to entertain. It may have been well looked after, as it was a source of income, but it was literally chained up, its freedom and natural movement denied. And so, I think it is with us, when we long for things to be as they were, for the simplicity and ease of years gone by, we become tethered to the past with no real freedom at all.