Blowing Through Your Bones

November 11, 2009
by
admin

I had a dream last night I went skydiving, fearlessly jumping from the plane on my own and guided by instinct as I descended to the ground.. With the sensation of the wind blowing through my flesh and bones equally real and invigorating, every sense was heightened ten fold.

My first experience seeing the Martha Graham Dance Company perform on the Northrop stage three years ago could be compared to elements of this dream-- the dream-like atmosphere, the enhanced vitality and sensory awareness, but more intensely, the feeling of being moved down to your bones, where even the marrow is touched by your experience.Graham's movements have a way of cutting through pretense and diving into the often dark core of human emotion.She has nothing to prove, only to become and excavate the truth from-- like skydiving without leaving the ground.

Among the pieces that night was Errand into the Maze, a work that still resonates with me. Having identified with the archetypal heroine Ariadne as she battled the Minotaur in the labryinth on what was a journey of and into self, her triumphs and setbacks were mine. Here was a figure whose movements did not exist in an abstract world, but a tangible world I could connect with.

With the upcoming performane of Clytemnestra, the winds of lust, betrayal, passion, and redemption will chart a new course, and blow new sensations into the marrow of our being.