Watching the Barbie trailer, where her dance party is ruined by some existential ruminations, I thought about the reason I love dance, and enjoy writing about it so much.
Yes, the linear keeps it moving along. It keeps the trains running, the coffee hot and rehearsals on time. But it’s the first odd impulse that causes the twitch on the graph.
It’s the first time Merce Cunningham and John Cage left it to chance; the moment Pina Bausch filled the cafe set with chairs. It’s when Michael Clark undid an elegant ballet line with a bare arse, wiggling to The Fall. It’s Bowie’s attempts at Pierrot mime; Trisha Brown recalibrating cycles, Rambert’s ghosts, and Liz Aggiss in a long, swishy horse’s tail, strutting.
Disrupt the flow, make it jagged and uncomfortable like Butoh, a dancer once called Paul but now known as Michael, wading through invisible molasses, to the other side. Give me Claire Cunningham using a crutch like a partner. I miss Sophie Laplane’s mischief. I want to see Damien Jalet’s headless creatures again.
Lean into the line that extends further, out of the room, into the chaotic night air. I want to see your primordial self, your sixth attempt, the shedding of skins, your colouring over the boundaries.
I can’t make the Edinburgh Festival again this year because of my body letting me down, but soon, this will be fixed. And I will be back, sitting in the dark, waiting for dance’s possibilities, long shadows and short sharper shocks, new edges, and a singular line to entice , stroke me, tug at my sleeves the need for shared familiarity with strangers, and the power to startle me once again.
Hit The North 