Watching dance, my attention moves from one part of the
stage to another, so that I experience the intimacy and the beauty of
particular movements. But recently I had
a glorious awakening. At the Performance
Festival of the American Dance Guild, being farther back in the audience than
usual, my eyes suddenly took in the entire stage at once and I found myself
watching a great sculpture where the parts moved instead of the viewer, and the
dancers, coupling, grouping, separating, created continually changing forms in space. All we had to do was to sit and be willing to
receive. I don’t know why I never saw it
before. All of my large constructions
were created with many individual parts, lines of different weight and
direction, with this very goal, that the viewers, moving around and thereby
shifting their perspective, would continually see new objects forming in space. This is a gift too from park trees, those with twisting outstretched branches, if you keep your eyes fastened while you walk. Walk backwards if you have to.
I won’t abandon the old way of looking, I simply know that
an entire new dimension has been added to my experience of dance.
Here are two views of “Private Rooms”, 16’ x 12’ x 8’h:
