Thursday, August 25, 2016
Dancing in the museum...
I used to write about dance. In the Scotsman.
It was so hard! Hard to give words to an experience that's so intrinsically belongs to the wordless. Hard to give expression to the experience of viewing it without taking refuge in technical language.
I'm not sure I can do it any more. But the reason I want to try is to say thank you to Janis Claxton and her dancers for a beautiful experience
They are dancing what they call pop up duets in the large open spaces the National Gallery of Scotland–beautifully crafted short pieces about the joy, the pain, the tenderness, the anger, the Vulnerability, and the strength of love.
Men dance with each other, Women dance with each other, men and women dance together in beautifully crafted pieces that each have their own very distinct Energy and character. But each tell a story that may be you could never put into words, which has a form and the shape and a beauty.
They they began and they ended always wittily and a bit unexpectedly in and out other crowds visiting the museum. So you never quite knew where they were going to come from, also they would end, or where they would go in between.
So everyone watching seemed also to be part of the dance–the surprised visitors scurrying past on my way somewhere else, the old man utterly astonished to find his bench being shared bye two dancing lovers, the museum attendant protecting a priceless Buddha, the two young girls sitting on the floor beside me improvising their own dance of love and playfulness.
I so love words, and working with them gives me so much pleasure and joy and satisfaction.
But this was something gorgeous to witness. It was so beautiful to be reminded of the space that exists beneath and beyond words.
So moving to be reminded that dance comes out of life:
And life comes out of dance.
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