I make sense of the world through dancing and travelling is a form of dancing in the world …
I have just arrived home from Europe after a full and eventful time spent with colleagues, friends and teachers who have inspired me in the course of my life. It was wonderful to immerse myself once again in the rich matrix of the BMC material and community in Tuscania, Italy. I also spent time with one of my original BMC teachers, Phoebe Neville in Reggio Emilia. Time with Phoebe and her husband Philip Corner was joyfully full of music, conversation, walks and meals. As artists who have been working for 50 years and more, much of that in New York City, being with them was like being immersed in the living history of post-modern music and dance, and made connections into the trajectory of my creative life.
Walking in the small cities of Reggio Emilia, Bologna and Florence was an aesthetic joy. They offer many opportunities for pleasure in the lived experience of the everyday – beautiful piazzas open out in an easy flow of social and public space. In Florence I sated myself with museums, galleries and the city itself in all its great beauty. I was very fortunate with the mild weather, which made walking the streets an enjoyable cultural experience as I discovered trattorias and bars for sustenance. I spent 6 hours in the Uffizi Museum, gathering stamina as I went. Always on the lookout for work by women and noting the glaring absence of this, I was intrigued to discover the work of Marghuerita Caffi, an Italian painter (1650-1710). The work I saw was gorgeous – luminous flowers floating on a dark background. At the Frieze Masters in London, I had seen an arresting sculpture by Lynda Benglis’, Bolero (1991-92). I feel like a huntress searching for clues in the ever-present insistence of the male artist and patron. Women were, of course there, they are often the centre of the painting but not the one with the brush. Their presence is there to maintain even insist upon the position of men in a world where they have the power and dominance in all areas of social and political life.
In Florence I also saw an exhibition of the Avant-Garde of Russia in early C20. Here was the work of Natalia Goncharova, alongside the work of Benois, Bakst, and Kandinsky amongst others. Their history intertwined through the Diaghilev era influencing C20 dance. But one of the great surprises was the work of Fra Angelica, a Dominican friar (1395-1455) who did luminous frescoes and his Last Judgment (1432-35) indicated for me the beginnings of surrealism.
On my way home I spent 2 quiet days with dancer Eva Karczag in Arnhem, The Netherlands. Through moving, touch and dialogue we exchanged the strands of our current concerns, interests and challenges in our work and life. Then the long flight home…