First contact, Helen Lewis[1] studio
from the Crescent window, Belfast
above the cafe: carrot soup and raspberry tea
we looked out upon a green, open space.
Ten o’clock, with Helen Lewis
imprisoned, shy, our senses shifting
our first electric morning
as we began to move
we saw our luminous souls uplifting.
At twelve we came to lie still
in the kindness
of soft, dancing bellies.
Soon we were styling it out
beginning to sing our colours.
Where did the quick time dance to?
Trusting in our new confidence
My ‘slow’ counterbalanced your ‘dynamo’.
Adapting, we travelled together
wheeling and leaning.
‘learning I’ asked you to show me how to speak with you.
By one o’clock
Helen Lewis is liberated
she joined us in our melting.
Tell me, hold you, bend me
know the way each of our bodies
may stretch and change
when we express our intentions.
Slide past and jam for a while
then settle here with us
to examine a newly discovered gift
turning our bodies this way and that
so the light catches, shines
on this powerful thing we do.
[1] Helen Lewis survived the Nazi concentration camp of Stutthof by directing and performing dance for her SS captors and fellow prisoners. She also survived Auschwitz. After the war she settled in Belfast and introduced modern dance to Northern Ireland.
No comments:
Post a Comment