on beauty

Two nights ago, I saw Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake at City Center.  The first time I saw the piece was eleven years ago, when the production first came to Broadway.  I was entranced and have since watched my DVD a number of times.  But Tuesday night was the first time I watched the show in its entirety in a long time.

I love the music.  I love every aspect of this production.  I can no longer imagine a version with a female dancing the part of the Swan because, really, female swans don’t make sense.  Swans are powerful, majestic, and cruel.  There is something inherently masculine about their physical strength.

I missed Adam Cooper.  His portrayal of the Swan was unimaginably layered.  Tuesday’s performance was good, better than good, even.  But something was missing.  With a flick of the wrist or a curve of his shoulder, Adam Cooper could evoke the movements of a bird, but also cruelty, love, lust, and aloofness.  There are no words to describe how many contrary emotions he could call with his wrist.

And that is what I want to write about.  The best dance I’ve ever seen hits me in the gut.  The emotions are so intense that it almost hurts to feel the loss or joy or anger or love.  Just being witness to the beauty and grace makes me ache.  When watching Swan Lake or my friend’s old brilliant dance company in college, tides of emotion start in the space between my solar plexus and my stomach and just radiate outward.

I don’t understand.

When I returned home Tuesday night, I tried to explain the production to my husband.  But in putting the relationship between the Prince and the Swan into words, I flattened it, deadened it.  The beauty of Swan Lake is that, without words, they dance simultaneous, contradictory, non-narrative relationships.

Does the Swan love the Prince?

Does the Swan torture the Prince?

Does the Swan protect the Prince?

Does the Swan feel remorse?

Does he hate the Prince?

Is he a perpetrator or a victim?

Is the Stranger actually the Swan?

Does the Swan want the Queen?

Does the Swan only dance with the women to hurt the Prince?

Is the Swan real or a figment of the Prince’s insanity?

Is the Swan capable of love?

Is the Swan capable of anything but cruelty?

Is this a story of requited or unrequited love?

Is this a story about insanity?

The answer is yes.

Try telling that relationship in narrative.  Try using words.  I dare you.  It doesn’t work.

After spending a number of years studying linguistics, cognitive science, literature, and art—and after spending even more years as a human being—I have come to the conclusion that people do not think in words.  Words come later.  Thoughts, emotions, happen on a pre-linguistic level.  Sure, our language affects how we think in the same way that picture frames affect what we see.  Thank you, Sapir Wharf.  But that’s it; words focus, but do not define, thought.  Haven’t you ever felt an emotion that you couldn’t put into words—not because you couldn’t remember the right one but because none existed for it? 

That’s what makes dance so profound for me.  It can tap into my emotions—into who I am—on a pre-linguistic level. Not sure what the lesson or conclusion I should draw from this is, as a writer.  I’m sure there is one.  Today, I am still just reeling from the raw experience.