I have in mind what George Balanchine, the Russian choreographer who fashioned the archetype of the American ballerina, had to say of Isadora Duncan, an earth-mother of modern dance who won fame in Europe and Russia with her passionately attuned evocations of the Muse - "a fat pig rolling around on the stage" was his approximate description. I'm lolling, grasping, red-faced snorting my way into this image; I'm seeing all the stuff behind those words that I want to sniff out, not even just the "fat" but the "pig," and the "rolling." What did we loose track of by sidestepping Isadora and all her deeply-creased folds?
Thank you to the music in this week's rite for extracting a story from me: composer Zoltan Kodaly, performer Adam Fellegi.
