Last night I was invited to see the Biarritz Ballet company perform at the Joyce theater, an intimate little venue with crushed red-velvet seats where you can see every ripple of stringently worked muscle, hear the squeaking of tense toes against the floorboards and the smacks of skin-on-stage or skin-on-skin as the dancers splayed across the floor and/or one another. Perfect. The little things make it count for much more. I accepted with zero hesitation, broke a date with myself and a yoga mat without a second thought. I don't mind it and therefore, my body doesn't either. It was a no-brainer.
Those kinds of 'decisions' are the most fun, the most fulfilling, because of their simple black-and-white nature. They present themselves to you out of nowhere (for me, very little beats the engaging thrill of spontaneity) and you just know which way to go. No debating over grey shades of doubt. Yoga can wait until tomorrow. Biarritz doesn't come around everyday.
Mmm Biarritz, what lovely memories I have of you, darling city by the sea. That small link gave me an additional initiative to accept, made me desirous to witness their dance spectacle sur scène. Needless to say, the show was superb. Ironically, dinner following was with a friend of a friend, a contemporary choreographer who's worked with decidedly more 'modern' (read: urban, street, pop) personas. I guess dance emerged as the theme of the evening. To boil it down even further: the body and its interpretations of/synthesis with sound.
Driven by bodily pursuits from a young age, I always derived esteem and satisfaction from my own facile ability to control and contort with immediate results. But watching the dancers' rigorous control and incarnation of classical notes and modern symphonies (based off the artistic interpretations and visions of Thierry Malandain "[who] examines the dialogue between contemporary art and historical heritage via the worlds of Velasquez and Ravel in two new pieces, Le Portrait de l’Infante and L’Amour Sorcier.") set my mind off on tangents equally inspired by and having little to do with (at least not in a direct sense) dance. And that's kinda the thing about dance, motion. You can't leave your skin and see it, but you can feel it, you dictate and control from a position of singular knowing. And if your brain is wired to connect the hearing with the interpretation and its appropriate rythmn into motion, you could potentially turn into a living stereo. What territories are there to be imagined and fleshed out? What symbiosis can come of a well-meshed knitting of senses?! All 5 of them...6?
I didn't read the show's synopsis beforehand. Much of the time I wasn't even trying to find meaning within the movement as related to the music, scenery, costume, artisitc vision...itself (to get meta on you)... I sort of just let it find me, if that makes sense... For some of the time, I could say that their performance served as a very peace-inducing atmosphere for daydreaming. I wondered, what were all these other eyes and minds around me seeing? Feeling? Were they picking apart the costumes, appreciating the second-skin-like quality of the taupe and transparent fabric? Could they 'see' the numerical patterns and ratios between the men and women on stage, coupled-up, juxtaposed, in combinations, flowing, in-out, lift up, lay down, 3, 6, 7, 8, 14, 5? Now circle around the center 2, the magic lovers, they sway and send the others scattering to one times 12. Did they also marvel at the amazing development of the human body, scrutinize the abs of the different girls weaving on and off stage, the quads and arms and buttocks and...of the male dancers, all moving together- yet apart? And what about Thierry and the dancers? They'd labored in the studio, working together to combine his vision and intent with a structured performance. Something like a bundle of wheat in the wind held together by a red thread..(oh my was that one poetic! hahah) What benefit does the company reap? Benefits so entirely different and inaccessible to the audience. Whereas, possibly, they have the dual ability to appreciate their work as an audience (on video) and in the real, as the work itself, breathing life into a vacant theater.
Was/is the goal soley to get people to see what you want them to? Artists can be oh-so-ego! Or could their creation be a loving, ego-free desire to express this deep human need to create for and, in so doing, relate to, those people who search out (or stumble upon) your production? I guess it would depend on the person(s)... Shared communities are the most potent of human creations, possibly more so than the roots from which the tree grows... However, (and today there would seem to be a bottomless well of 'howevers') does the sum of its parts necessarily equate that the tree won't be knocked over? Are not the roots the safest and most stable? And although we may never know the nature of our interpretations as compared to our neighbors, we can still rest assured that an appreciation for what we witness together ties the room into a dusty pink ballet bow.
How many times have words, symbols, intentions and their artistic syntheses been misconstrued and misinterpreted? How slightly frustrating it must be when there are specific meanings to be taken to heart and they are instead picked apart, meat thrown to the left, bones to the right. No, no, no! You were supposed to enjoy the drumstick as such! And what about the sauce and spices!? You totally missed those!!! No, now you're mucking it up with your artificial dip!
Maybe those who 'get it' are those who stay slightly hungry. Tip-toeing the brink of lost and found. Surroundings and sounds in constant flux while the state stays singular balancing from the one beating source, performing a steady tight rope walk til the end. The journey gets easier, more enjoyable with each and every step while a certain tension ensures nothing escapes them.
lucky duck.