Stripper on the courthouse steps The first fĂȘte de village which M. attended in France shocked him deeply. It was a small rural town in the Tarn, much like the one where we live now, and the one where we were last night â a sleepy farming village. But at one point on stage there Continue Reading
(...) M. sensed an opportunity and, because he knows me better sometimes even than I know myself, he didnât let it get away. He niggled and persuaded, âCome on, this was custom-made for you⊠you need to do it,â until I gave in and stepped out from the audience, positioning myself to dance with one of the faceless women. I could not help but notice the similarity of his persistence in eroding my resistance â tension against tension in our coupling of opposing forces, because I felt that I did not need to dive in personally in order to understand what I saw, and he insisted that at least one of us should â was not unlike the taut red cord that choked both dancers in a tug of war of equals by the neck.
Despite the festive atmosphere, the woman I clasped hands with was stiff and unalive. I had not expected that. She did not speak at all, and though we were in an intimate pose, I did not feel I could speak to her. We swayed not like dancers but like zombies, like cadavers. She was performing, making a point. It was not a dance foremost, but a symbol. I found the train of her skirt entwining my legs as we turned slowly in one direction, the red sash that connected her to her âsisterâ twin across the dancefloor also wound around my neck and that of the other new partner.
But were we partners? Or their victims. Or their beards. Or even their pupils. If I had not danced with her myself, I would not have grasped half as much of the symbolism. This was participatory art. To observe it was not enough. You had to engage personally to understand it best.
Two faceless women bound by a cord summoned strangers out of the audience to dance through a song, but never broke their connection to each other, nor revealed their true identities to their partners, not even to each other.
I barely got to experience this, as I was the last one to dance with one of them before the music stopped and they took a final bow. I would not trade that memory for the comfortable security of never having stepped out.
English
"This cast-off skin is totally different from that other skin that our body has lost. They are divided in two. One skin is that of the body approved by society. The other skin is that which has lost its identity." | æé»èèž, - Hijikata Tatsumi
In this context that keeps us at a distance from one another, which persists in desuniting us and drastically cuts off our clear-sightedness, we still have the gesture, and maybe the number. Without your voice and light to accompany our steps and light the way, we shall go nowhere.
On Friday April 11th, blinded and shackled, weâll silently move forward all together, at any cost.
