 |
The Skyscrapers, 1920-22
(Cover of John Leonard's book Private Lives in the Imperial City)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Leonard, in his short story "To Dance or Not to Dance" from his 1979 book Private Lives in the Imperial City, writes:
Then came the sixties. In a series of seedy discotheques, to which I went only in the company of Erving Goffman and other dramaturgists, I found that people were dancing without looking at one another. Narcissism was liberating. Energy did not require talent; it was self-authenticating. To be sure, a partner or two complained that a key was needed to unlock my knees, that I lacked soul - but I have always believed, with Descartes, that my soul, if I have one, is in my pineal gland, not in my pelvis or anywhere else south of the tropic of my bellybutton. I could dance, while at the same time maintaining my autonomy, the crux criticorum.I wrote in my blog post Geometry in Pride and Prejudice (I'm reproducing the complete, short post, below):
--------------------------------
Private Lives in the Imperial City
"To Dance or Not to Dance" p. 163
Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice , also enacted in various movie versions - the 1940 version with Laurence Olivier being a classic - is full of geometry.In a short century and a half, social dance (dancing within a group with a specific partner) becomes "self-authenticating" rather than where "groups [and partners] are carefully choreographed" to form a final pattern. Contemporary social dance is like a Jackson Pollock painting of splattered paint. The painting's purpose is to represent the individualized soul of the painter. It is often (always, at least to the uninitiated) incoherent and "patternless." But its purpose is not to relate to others, or even to the world beyond the painting, but to release the energy (idiosyncrasies) coiled within the painter.
During the frequent social dances which bring different families and groups together, dances are a common way for people to interact. Dancers are paired off with diagonally opposite partners, then break loose to join those next to them, and travel down lines with yet another. Partners weave in and out of lines and squares to complete the dance. The music prompts you when to start, stop and change directions and patterns.
Finally, at the very end, like a lovely carpet, all the patterns settle in perfect harmony and geometry. Everyone, and everything, is just where they belong.
Such dances are a microcosm of what happens in society itself. The rules of the game are dictated by subtle meters and melodies, decorum and restraint are required, conversation and interaction with partners and groups are carefully choreographed. And the final outcome is an unobtrusive and polite pairing off of the right couples.
I picked up Private Lives in the Imperial City in a second hand bookstore. I had no idea who Leonard was, and still don't know much about him, except that he was an abashed leftist (Wikipedia calls him "an acerbic leftist" and lists one of his activities as "a union organizer for migrant farmers") and a book critic for the New York Times - I'm not sure if the two are related.
Still, subscribing to leftist politics doesn't preclude talent, and I think Leonard had plenty of it. His chapter on dancing is very funny, especially when his "sidekick" refuses to dance during a night out with a group of people, having acquired serious doubts about her dancing abilities. Leonard sympathizes with her insecurity: "I dance like an oil rig myself, all elbows and pumping action." But he believes that such talentless gyrations should be celebrated, unlike his more discerning friend, since they exult the individual, freeing him to fulfill his "self-authentication."