A slight, stooping figure dressed in black walks out on stage. You can hear a pin drop in the 1000-seater Theatre de la Ville in Paris, packed to its gills, where giant fish swim along endlessly between waving algae in an aquarium of unconscious happenings.
Pina Bausch stands in front of the projection, raises her arms and begins a 5 minute solo where, with feet rooted to the ground, she gradually disappears into the image, a waving frond of algae amidst others. The human is only part of the universe, not its center.
Editor's Note.
Form is a bookshelf holding books, a spine of a book holding its pages. It is the architecture after the architect. Just as gravity holds the earth down even as it floats in some larger space; just as the body holds a consciousness, even as it daydreams outside of it. It is a line bent into a symbol, droplets of mercury constrained in a thermometer. It is a molecular bond, it is our minds finding habit.
Read MoreAlso in this issue
Illusion: Seeing Beyond Seeing
Meaning: In Search of Significance.
Melody: A Different Tune
Rhythm: Ordering Time