Diary #16

KOWLOON TONG, HONG KONG, 1989 — Junior Year. This guy from City University of Hong Kong came by HKAPA looking for a dancer for a project of his. I like projects. And sometimes I got bored with technique classes, so I jumped at it. It turned out to be a sort of technique class anyway. He wanted me to stand on pointe (like, forever, thank you) while he photographed, or actually X-Ray photographed, my legs. But his x-ray film wasn’t nearly big enough to capture my legs, so he took, like, TWENTY pictures or something, and then pieced them all together afterwards.

THE HAGUE, 2012 — I haven’t danced on pointe any time recently, and I can’t say I miss it, except… I miss it. Ballet is not the most creative thing in the world, but the power, the poise, the confidence, the being so in your body, the being so present in a moment, the aliveness, it’s a unique feeling I don’t believe I’ve ever quite felt from any other thing I’ve done.

I do love this picture. And not to be conceited, but you’ve got to admit, my tibiae are hot! And those are not bad looking femurs either. Although one of my favorite parts is seeing my patellae just floating there. It’s so cool. And creepy. And I love seeing my toe shoes and the nails. It cracks me up that you can see that whoever made the shoe on my left foot, they dropped a nail inside and just left it there and glued more layers over it.

I don’t actually know if I have that pair of toe shoes anymore or not, but I do have old shoes. I don’t wear them. But I’d never get rid of them. Time capsule you know. My mother still has her old bowling ball! Why shouldn’t I still have my old toe shoes? Maybe I’ll take a picture of them sometime and add them to this diary.