connect the dots

how do you choose what to wear? are garments always costumes, assuring that you will be taken by others as the role you wish to fill? there are those who suggest that every single item of clothing is a choice communicated, down to the last nuance, and a statement made, down to the last whisper.

me, i am driven by color. and cotton. and though i believe i have no consciousness of what is fashionable whatsoever, there remains something of great importance about it all.

i can remember the white empire-waisted sheath that i wore for high- school graduation. it had a black cummerbund with white polka dots. i was, and still am, quite delighted that i could find an enameled bracelet that was white with black polka dots to match.

several times here we've discussed the volumes of identity revealed in various cultures by hairdo, or costume, detail, or grand gesture. if it was true then, it must be true now. something as 'simple' as a woman's fingernails might immediately brand her as 'one of us' or not.

do you want it to be true for you? do you communicate through appearances consciously? might you be kidding yourself, telling a different story entirely than the one you believe you're telling? how is your identity spelled out by your clothes?

i have come to believe that identity, appearance, opinion are, for most of us, invisibly malleable -- we think what we think, wear what we wear, even know ourselves to be who we think we are... to fit into the group of our life. it could be dangerous not to.

to be born 'outside the box' changes the perception of this, but does not wholly negate its pull. we like to think we create ourselves out of free will, but if that were true best friends wouldn't dress alike, nobody would call to ask what to wear to the party.

that old song, 'you've got to be taught how to hate,' well, you've got to be taught everything else too. how can something so unimportant be the most important thing of all?

the hommage continues

listen to anitra's dance while viewing

new york times, august 21, 1917

ADOLF BOLM GIVES HIS EXOTIC DANCES

Adolf Bolm, who was the "brains" of the Russian Ballet in its American seasons, as Michael Fokine was in Europe, presented at the Booth Theatre last evening his latest assembling of exotic dances, called "Ballet Intime," drawn from original sources as various as Russia, India, Java, and Japan.

Among his associate artists, Roshanara led with a "Hindu Fantasy" in dark silhouette, danced to the air of the "Hindoo Song" that Alma Gluck sings, played on this occasion by Jerome Goldberg as a violin solo with orchestra.

There were also Roshanara's "Snake Dance," "Ceylon Harvest," and an East Indian Nautch, with Ratan Devi, the British India singer, who on a platform before the footlights gave some of her own familiar and the authentic folksongs and classics of the East.

Michio Itow of the Imperial Theatre, Tokio, staged his own "Wine Dance," suggesting the methods of modern Japanese art, and the "Fox Dance," in mask and eerie fantasy, recalling the courtly "Noh" dances of old Japan.

The principal new production, recently rehearsed here before a tour of the Summer colonies from Washington to Newport and Bar Harbor, was Mr. Bolm's adaptation of Saint-Saens's "Dance of Death" in the manner of the choreodramas of the Diaghileff troup, with Rita Zalmani for a tiptoe partner, and Marshall Hall as the grinning Death, who tunes the fiddle and takes toll of the dancers at last, an idea congenial to that of the composer of the "Macabre."

Eva Gauthier sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the intermission. Marcel Henrotte played Schumann's "Carnival" for piano during briefer pauses, and in conclusion there were Bolm/s "Assyrian" and "Prince Igor" dances from the Russian tour.

Opera and theatre goers in about equal measure made up an appreciative audience, that applauded the presentation of a laurel wreath to Mr. Bolm, who hopes later to produce here an American dance after the "Red Mask" of Edgar Allan Poe.

Bed! Bed! I couldn't go to bed!
My head's too light to try to set it down! Sleep! Sleep!
I couldn't sleep tonight.
Not for all the jewels in the crown!

I could have danced all night!
I could have danced all night!
And still have begged for more.
I could have spread my wings

And done a thousand things I've never done before.

I'll never know What made it so exciting;
Why all at once My heart took flight. I only know when he
Began to dance with me I could have danced,
danced, danced all night!

Eliza, in My Fair Lady