“I like this slow opening, it sound almost improvised” she said while staring on the CD pile scattered in front of her. “I need however something more energetic to follow, something like a promenade and I want rhythm but, not a regular pulse, with a probably bizarre ending which gradually gets more and more frenetic.”
In ancient Greece, Terpsichore was the muse of dance, and nothing could be a better subject for a project involving two pianos and a female dancer inspired by John McCabe and Tamami Honma.
However what happens when the incarnation of inspiration gets confused?
I could see her movements which at first appeared noble and composed, dissolving into a frantic puppet-like dance that dominated her body and spirit and spurred the ecstatic goddess, personified by the Japanese dancer, to swirl, turn and jump till exhaustion took over her body bringing her transcendental ritual to an abrupt halt. When gazing at her stationary body lying on the floor in an embryo-like posture, I couldn’t help once again think of the ancient Greeks and their ideas about ecstasy as a symbol or spiritual and physical rebirth.
First performance: March 2004, Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury, John McCabe, Tamami Honma.