How do we define Art?

How do we define Beauty?

Don't Art and Beauty go hand in hand?
And isn't Beauty in the eyes of the beholder?
Artistic value should hence be the same.

Does a dancer need to be tall, blond, white, thin, tanned, blue-eyed to be considered a worthy dancer?

Does Art need to fit a certain standard, or is it just the standards that rob a work of all its artistic value?

Does Art need to be aesthetically pleasing to be considered as such, or is it exactly the "pleasing" that kills the Art?

Shouldn't Art be something that does not bend to the rules of the "common", of the "normal"?

Shouldn't Art move us, stir feelings in us, compel us to think, allow us to see reality under a different light, help us change, evolve?

Why are we trying to set boundaries to Art?

Isn't THIS pure art?
(click for video)

How could this be described as Art, if it had to fit the standards above? There is nothing aesthetically beautiful in it, but nobody can say it's nothing but Art. So the standards must be wrong.

Isn't THIS Art?
(click for video)

Are we so foreign to Art that we need critics, "professionals" who tell us what is and what isn't Art?

Art is the expression of our feelings and the recognition of somebody else's feelings.

We are all capable of  both as human beings.
We need no-one to tell us what deeply moves us.
We just need to let go and feel.

The Artistic World has always been the spearhead for the changes that take place in society. Artistic licence has always been the perfect excuse and the necessary shield to start presenting different realities to the comfortable world of the "normal".

Isn't THIS Art?
(click for video)

We might like a work of Art, or we might not.

It might speak to us, in which case we will grow as a being, through the feelings and thoughts that are born by the experience of having been in contact with it.

And if it doesn't speak to us, it does not mean that it won't speak to someone else. We are all different, and we are all in different phases of our evolution. A same work of Art might not speak to us at a certain point in our lives, and do it at a different time. If a work of Art does not speak to us, it does not mean it's worthless.

So, why should a couple's dance number be considered Art if the dancers are of a different sex, and not if they are of the same sex?

Britain’s governing body of ballroom dancing has proposed a change of the definition of a competing partnership to be “one man and one lady” (read the whole article here).

They say that two men have more stamina than a couple composed by man and woman. But then... what about two women?

Haven't this kind of excuses always been used for trying to keep the status quo, to avoid evolution?

Aren't we tired of them yet?

Who is to decide that a dance number of two men or two women together as a couple, is not worthy of being called Art?

How can anyone think that it is good, or even possible, setting boundaries to Art?

Laura