Jarkko Lehmus Diary

A Monkey, Some Magic and A Heap of Stewed Brain

There's a big monkey running amok in my brain tonight. Describing the havoc he's causing within the moundaries of written word won't be easy so please forgive me if I falter.

We've been hard at work for the past three weeks learning a tailored version of Mr Forsythe's Artifacts. I've been a big fan of his work for a long time, but I never thought I'd be able to or get the opportunity to dance it myself. It's painfully fascinating in it's musicality, speed and precision. During the first couple of weeks I felt like somebody had stuck a hand blender and a hot air blower into my brain through my ears, left them on on full pelt and then given the rest of my body a proper seeing to with a baseball bat. Now that the initial shell shock is fading I'm slowly making some sense out of it all, and am feeling a strange sympathy to battered cod and it's friends the abused pike and the molested carp... As taken as I've been with the work itself, learning it from the stealh-sexy Jodie Gates has been a lesson in it's own right; I've had the privilege of partnering her occasionally when she's been teaching and demonstrating the steps and she has been absolutely mind blowing! Sadly we've only got her for another week and the time's really flying.

Jodie busting some moves with Erik. Photo by me©

I've always had hard time describing physical feelings accurately with words. I guess that's why I dance. If I was better at explaining myself, or the world around me, through another form of communication like writing, playing and instrument or cooking, I'd be very likely to have chosen a different career. As it is I'm a dancer who writes an occasional line of drunken gibberish, plays saxophone very badly and my packed lunches smell like dog food.

I got myself a ticket to see NDT2 tonight. They're supposed to be pretty good dancers and what I've seen of Kylian's and Lightfoot's choreography I've generally liked it very much, so I was expecting to have a nice enough evening. When I came into the auditorium I saw these fabulous beasts on the stage playing around with the movement material of the first piece and I couldn't believe my eyes. (That's usually the case when you see a fabulous beast, isn't it?) So I sat down, didn't blink for a quarter of an hour, because I didn't want to miss a moment, and in the process dried my eyes out so badly my contact lenses almost joined my jaw that was already on the floor. As the evening progressed I didn't need to worry about keeping my eyes moist enough for I was strugling to keep myself from bursting into tears! These young guns are the most talented dancers I've ever seen and they'd beat my silly arse into pulp with my own Zimmer-frame before I could even call the nurse! Articulation, sensitivity and versatility in a class of their own.

Which planet do they come from? It's true that NDT2 has got the advantage of the immense gene pool of auditioning about 250 dancers each year, but it can't all be down to picking out pure talent. Years of effort and a few great teachers are to blame. That reminds me... I promised to write more about the complexities of dance training, didn't I? I'll put my thinking cap on and if I come up with something interesting I'll pass it on to you. Now if you please excuse me and my monkee, we need to count my bones for a while, and try to come up with a way of turning them into rubber, if we're ever going to stand a chance of surviving in the jungle of the dance world.

Posted by Jarkko at May 22, 2004 01:00 AM