Ne faites pas la moue
A Philosophical Dance Hall
Sometimes I wonder whether a thought and a performance might actually be the same thing.
We often assume they are not, but on closer reflection, perhaps they are.
In this second episode, dance movements and choreographic references call forth philosophical worlds.
Bodies are set into play — and suddenly Spinoza appears: “The body and the mind are two words designating the same substance.” From there, we proceed to warm up the neurons; we connect the Entrance of the Shades from La Bayadère (Petipa, 1877) with Plato’s myth of the cave; we delight in the arched back and Cunningham-style twists that lend themselves to philosophical reversal; we sway our hips to sketch out a “je-ne-sais-quoi” in the spirit of Jankélévitch; without forgetting the déboulés, that great figure of classical dance infused with a beautiful sense of freedom: to sweep forward, to turn, to make a world.
And perhaps also to risk a philosophical dance hall — to launch oneself into the question of what exists. Through dancing. With a poor little body, a marvelous body, trying out that very thing: denying nothing of what is possible. Here again, Spinoza.
To attempt…
This episode concludes with a sequence of ecstasies, a tribute to philosophers who wrote extraordinary things. They are, overwhelmingly, men. Does the beard make the philosopher? That is what we shall discover in the next episode.
Performance: Geisha Fontaine