Thursday 14 February 2013

The DNA of movement

Dance is becoming a little sub-theme here (which makes me think it's really time to see some in the flesh).

My latest: this article about Australian dancer Stuart Shugg in the New York Times. I'm not all that interested in Mr Shugg himself (sorry Stuart) but I'm fascinated by some of the phrases he uses:

On older women dancers: "All those women have incredible history in their bodies. They don’t have the highest legs. But even if they’re not moving like 20-year-olds, they are still incredibly articulate."

On effectively having an unpaid internship with the Trisha Brown Company: "It was worth it just to get that information in my body".

This idea of information and history encoded in the body is one that I find intriguing.

1 comment:

suse said...

My husband does a lot of cycling, and often puts himself under significant amount of pressure to train for particular events. But he has so many "miles in the legs" that even time without training means that his body is superconditioned to what he does, even when he could be fitter or stronger.

As we age, our bodies show signs of the burdens we have put them under over time. They remember the hurts. It is a good reason to fix things that go wrong early and often.