SortOno chronicles of the locker room. But do not think of football, soccer, not even the Padel but the dance: we are in a room that is a square, a window on the courtyard, a door that opens and tie on a river of words that flows between two benches a hearing that no longer ended; the last of Trump; the admission test of a daughter; a sore bunch since last time; a shirt to be stolen from the bag of the Lost & Found of the Academy because you always miss a piece …
There will be nothing, however, to how many have prepared a sophisticated professional outfit, another of theirs, declined in pale shades of rose or in bottle green lace, tulle combinations and large wool. Then all inside.
The average age holds four generations together. Boomer who have a life tour to envy the teenage version of themselves. Cignetti Zeta who open in dizzying front split. And, in the middle, a drapello of X and Millennialsdate of birth from the mid -sixties to the end of the nineties.
Barbara Stefanelli (photo by Carlo Vangeri Gilbert).
In the crowded evenings the bars multiply in front of the mirror. There are fixed couples: one that guides, the other is shadow. And Amazons who move diagonally, without a fixed place, because I have so “I have it”: that is, they have stored the sequence of tips e plié on the first lap.
The teacher can go to straighten out a “crawling” foot or ask you how the born summit finished (Perhaps to return credibility in front of the class). She gives the numbers of the mounted choreography. And updates playlists that collect songs from Romeo and Juliet to Billie Eilish. Birds of a feather“Creatures of the same feather”. More or (very) less capable of performing a Rond de jamce“A circle of the leg”, en dehors (out), en dedications (in inside) possibly (worse I feel) en l’i air. And yet close and to read light, like that one magical feather.
Why did I start again, half a century later? Without more physical memory of a single bending, but with the living traces of the discomfort of the time, uncertain child, a little heavy, resigned to the rear of the essay? Because it is beautiful. The movements. Music. The muscles. The group and the teacher. That locker room and also the mirror. The infinite possibility – and incredible – to take a step and perhaps another, forward.
About Rond de jamcefor example, here is the definition proposed in Dance and his words: “The circle is a universal symbol of primordial perfection, totality, simultaneity, since if on the one hand it suggests the idea of movement and instability, on the other it evokes a sense of protection and safety, given its similarity with the shape of the embrace”. This is why I started again: to mend instability and security. Par lands, en l’air.
How much is it worth practicing a discipline – yoga, dance, other – that unites body and mind? Write us to [email protected]
All articles by Barbara Stefanelli
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