I cannot dance upon my Toes

Photographs — Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

On Sunday March 10th my Rosemary and I attended Vancouver’s Arts Umbrella Dance Company’s There and Back Again — Travel through the history of ballet at the Scotia Bank Dance Centre.

The principal reason why we went was to see our granddaughter Lauren Stewart, 16, dance the first part of the program. We stayed as anything having to do with the Arts Umbrella Dance Company will always be refreshing and thrilling.

In a later blog I will post the photographs that I took of the dance involving our granddaughter and the rest of the program.

During my long career as a magazine photographer I had the obligation to deliver photographs that went hand in hand with the copy of the essay or magazine article. As obsolete, redundant & retired kind of guy I can now do stuff in which if I fail I will not have to answer to anyone.

So this blog and the photographs are all about the feet and legs of dance. Without them there cannot be any dance. That is not quite true as I have in the past witnessed modern dance performed on wheel chairs! Some years back Max Wyman,the almost retired renaissance man and former dance critic and I worked on a photo essay about dancer’s shoes for the Vancouver Sun. A blog that is similar is here.

This lovely poem by Emily Dickinson is the reason for the blog’s title.

I cannot dance upon my Toes —
No Man instructed me —
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,

That had I Ballet knowledge —
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe —
Or lay a Prima, mad,

And though I had no Gown of Gauze —
No Ringlet, to my Hair,
Nor hopped to Audiences — like Birds,
One Claw upon the Air,

Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls,
Nor rolled on wheels of snow
Till I was out of sight, in sound,
The House encore me so —

Nor any know I know the Art
I mention — easy — Here —
Nor any Placard boast me —
It’s full as Opera —

My friend, just about retired renaissance man (and dance critic) Max Wyman and I once published a photo essay in the Vancouver Sun which was all about ballerina slippers and feet. It is here.

Link to: I cannot dance upon my Toes

Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.