[This article was commissioned by and first published in ‘Last(ing), Indent 2022’.]
Learning, life experience, knowledge, wisdom, memory… where does all this live? As dancers, we don’t (hopefully) see, experience, and perhaps even understand the body and mind as separate entities. Perhaps even the soul and spirit (defined as we individually prefer) are part of this holistic being. We literally embody knowledge – we ‘know’ in our bones; our muscles are carriers of emotions, our flesh and skin imbibe and transmit information. The mind inhabits every pore of this body, and the experience of the body permeates thought, action, remembrance, and communication. This is how we live and possibly how we die. But sometimes the mental and the physical seem divided. Sometimes, one of them remembers while the other forgets. Sometimes how we live ruptures from how we die.
Vikram Iyengar 