A steady and rumbling beat shook the theater and my body. The sound immediately imbued me with a sense of discomfort, almost fear. Soon, one dancer emerged, then another. Discord and chaos seemed to govern their bodies. Their movements were unpredictable and independent, just like man. Our minds cultivate countless, erratic thoughts unique from anyone else, our differences in thought causing conflict and confusion, which was captured by the choreography in this first part of the performance. After this, however, the male dancer began spewing distressed noises from his mouth and then kicked beach balls onto the stage, as if he were sick of being human and had purged the flaws of man from his body. The two then started observing and kicking the beach balls as if examining the ills of humanity from a removed perspective. The dancers then started to revolve around each other, reciting the names of the world’s countries, finally in a state of union. It felt like they had transformed from conflicting humans to outside observers. They were now looking at the planet from above, witnessing the countries pass by. However, they also witnessed humans and their actions, using their guns to settle their small and pointless disagreements, now aware of how futile it is. As the performance came to a close, the dancers faded into the darkness, reciting the words “day” and “night,” the only constants on this planet; no matter what fleeting problems we may have, they will never last longer than the unending cycle of day and night. In the end, we are all the same. Just a species sharing a planet, living under the same star.

While watching this performance, a bunch of words came to mind: genius, beautiful, weird, scary, inspirational, different, fascinating. I haven’t been to too many live performances like this before, but this one was definitely something special. It resonated especially with me because it combined two things that are ridiculously interesting to me: physics and dance. I’ve only had very basic introductions to both of these topics (an algebra-based physics class in high school and eight seasons of MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew), but despite my shallow knowledge, they’ve both managed to captivate me. They’re seemingly opposites; physics is an objective, mathematical science which explains the laws of nature from the subatomic to the astronomical, while dance is an extremely human art form which illustrates the beauty of movement and the human body. Seeing these two concepts come together was moving (no pun intended). Two dancers, two individual human bodies, portraying a concept that is unimaginable for those of us who are bound to Earth: the overview effect.

Everything about this event was striking to me. I was moved by the performance, educated by the lecture, and satisfied by the Insomnia Cookies. Honestly, though, the moment that’s stayed in my mind most was from the Q&A. Someone in the crowd asked (I’m paraphrasing here) if there will come a point, after commercialized spaceflight has become common, when people will no longer experience the overview effect. I was expecting the speakers to say something like “something as grand as seeing the entirety of Earth before your very eyes will always move a human being, even those in the future.” Instead, I was surprised to find that they agreed that there will probably come a point of desensitization, just like after the publication of the first official map of Earth or after the first complete photograph of the Earth was taken. It was just astonishing to me to imagine humanity at that point. A point when everyone has seen and experienced something that is, right now, reserved to only a very select group of people. Thinking of this reminds me that humanity is always moving forward, always asking “what’s next?” I find that both terrifying and wonderful.