Researching a new story recently, I came across an interview with Martha Graham. There were so many treasures in it. What a brilliant thinker she was.
This statement about “ideal dance bodies” gave me pause, as it is something I have considered myself:
“They’re so satisfied, like a pretty cat, you know. They stroke themselves and they’re satisfied and don’t have to . . . to tear themselves up.”
Graham goes on to say that the “divine fallacy” is absent, and describes a weaver leaving a flaw in a blanket to let the soul out. Read the full interview here.
There is something interesting in what she is talking about, but the body is not all that is going on in a person, and people carry all kinds of hidden difficulties—flaws in the weaving.
There is, however, something about struggle. Earlier this year, in his “Meet the Jury” discussion at the Prix de Lausanne, Tancredo Tavares, a master teacher of Graham Technique, spoke about the link between passion and suffering. The word passion comes from the Latin passio: suffering or enduring.
And while we don’t use passion and suffering interchangeably today, I do find the connection interesting. Particularly when it comes to dance.
Through struggling with a movement, or with yourself—exploring all its ins and outs rather than arriving too easily or too quickly—you get to know the movement better, and yourself too. And in so doing, test the limits of your passion!
Perhaps an ideal dance body, therefore, is a tested one.