Exploring an Empty Dance Studio
Happy National Poetry Month from Stance on Dance!
BY GWYN HENRY; ILLUSTRATION BY CAMILLE TAFT
I embrace the corner
this juncture of walls
a meeting place
for spine and sheet rock.
Demarcation. A map, a sign: this way
will hold you true.
As I go along the wall
grappling like a blind woman
eschewing sight, eyes closed
I arrive at an opening
square and wide
a roar of solar
spilling through.
My hands pass
into this light
and it falls warming
from skin to bone.
Wanting more
I thrust my head
through the opening
and upper half too
so I hang by waist
belly on window sill
half in half out.
I lay a palm against
the outside wall and find
its bulk, its strength, its willingness
to support: mortar and frame
nails and insulation.
Corners and Spine. Junction, Roof, Shelter. All of this
give me gifts
because I was once
a woman who closed her eyes
and unfurled her body from the window sill
of a dance studio weightless
willing and full of wonder.
Gwyn Henry is the woman behind Movement Artists Ensemble (MAE), a group of women in Escondido, CA who are moving into their middle years and beyond and who come together to improvise, take video footage, and weave the footage into dance poetry on film. She also practices authentic movement, which was the inspiration for this poem.
Camille Taft is an 18-year-old dancer living in Longmont, CO, who has trained throughout her life in primarily ballet and modern dance. With both her parents as visual artists, she has always appreciated the excitement that comes from a collaboration of mixed media, and was thus overjoyed to have the opportunity to work with Stance on Dance.