#62 - Why, the Nerve of Orphan Muscles!
"How psychology would deepen if we could know the psychology of each muscle!" - Gaston Bachelard
Emio Greco's Rimasto Orfano: ostensibly about orphans (the title means "Abandoned Orphan"), it seemed to be more about how our bodies become orphans from us.
Dancers were shot through with neuron spasms, jerking and jostling, bristling at limits and coming undone. Flesh almost diverged from bone, heads shook so violently they might roll off their necks, selfhood was dissected into component muscles and nerve endings. Protoplasm of jellyfish energy, gelatinous pulsating tissue and sinew, capable of stinging. Creatures of motion, solidity sparked into action instead of reaction.
But the dancers never dissembled, even as they dis-assembled. They always maintained shreds of decency, stitching their bodies through the needle's eye, organizing the loose ends, angelic, with apple-core souls, dynamo engines of sentient grace, making sense out of chaotic sensation.
The dancing climaxed in Greco surrounded by his troupe, driving his shaved head into the ground like an electrified worm or a pile driver made of eel. The floor thudded, the wood resisted entry, and Greco stopped. We gasped and clapped thunderously, happy and sad at the edge of lightning.
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