Photo by Morgan M. Davis

http://themidtowngazette.com/2012/11/a-self-made-man/

Check out the article "A Self-Made Man" by Morgan M. Davis in The Midtown Gazette.  

 

Video by Owen Crowley 

Saturday, November 17, 2012

 New York City.

Dance is more than a living art.  

Dance is life itself.

Garrett Buhl Robinson

**** one of these days I will have images of dancers in the videos so people won't have to look at a lug like myself while I read my poetry ****

from Martha (a poem) 

II.i.1 standing

photography by Emily Aronica 

"In humanity I see grace, beauty and dignity.  Here.  Let me show you."

Refreshment from a Plenitude of Perspectives

The other day I had one of those delicious moments when I could pause at The Pond at Central Park and enjoy the soothing beauty of the calming water.  I found myself mesmerized as I watched the Koi lazily swish their lacy tails and lift their heads to gulp mouthfuls of the sky settled on the pond's placid surface.  A thought bubbled up in my mind that those fish live for centuries, literally, and will never realize that they live in Manhattan.  Then I found myself turning around and spotted a window in a high rise where someone was standing and seemingly staring at me.  He lifted a glass and then turned back into the corridor. He may have been thinking the same thing about me, "That guy could live his entire life in Manhattan and never really know what it is like."

My five minute pause complete and feeling refreshed, I rushed down the stairs into the Subway and jumped into a crowded car.  As the train plunged into the tunnel I looked down the length of the car at all the people and considered all the wondrous worlds revolving in all the people's thoughts.

Garrett Buhl Robinson

I thought I'd post a link to the brief film I made to promote Zoe.  If you listen closely, you can hear the birds singing, and yes the horn of the train coming.  "If I only concentrate and what I do not have, how will I ever know what I am?"

The Limerick and the Syllogism

In scolding tones he had been told
"Drive on the right side of the road!"
but found this mistaken
when visiting Britain
so he left to think on his own.

Martha is a dancer. She was dancing before she was born. She dances through her childhood. She dances through her career.

Dance is the perfect subject to explore the physical reality of our lives. Dance is an activity that excites the dynamics of involvement while minimizing disruptions. Typically, society advices individuals that disruptions can only be avoided through compromise, acquiescence, subjugation and abnegation. Dance demonstrates how life may be pursued to the vigorous extremes while maintaining harmony. There is no more perfect melding of robust exertion and intricate expression in human nature.

Through dance, strength is presented not through a capacity for destruction, but rather the ability to maintain a composure that can withstand the extremes of physical and creative expression. Dance demonstrates the ability to broaden the limits of liberated movement, not through reckless abandon, but through gracious balance, dedicated integrity and bold aspiration. Dance is more than the refinement of the human physique; dance is the refinement of the human character.

This poem, Martha, is a lyrical narrative depicting an art that is not about life, but is life as this life is lived by a dancer.

III.iii.2

{the dance begins}

Upon the stage, Martha stands in her place

and waits.  Her body is lunging to move

in every direction at once.  Beyond the curtain,

the clatter of clapping then a sudden hush. 

The conductor stands upon the podium,

a glowing figure in the darkness before

the sparkling polish of the instruments. 

At one moment, there is perfect silence,

as if space was the surface of a placid lake.

The speaker announces, “In humanity

I see grace, beauty and dignity.

Here.  Let me show you.”  Then the curtain

lifts with the rush of Niagara.  The music

moves, filling the openness with consoling

tones, a melody of the woods twirling

ribbons of wind and gently, the dance begins.