Critical Correspondence

MRPJ#21/age and the trajectory of the body in time: Extras

I am constantly rearranging my internal furniture. — Remy Charlip

You’re only as good as your legs and your breathing. — James “Buster” Brown

Someday I will be able to do it. It’s a matter of paying attention. — Frances Alenikoff

All of the above as quoted in Wendy Perron’s article “This World and the Next.”

Age and the Trajectory of the Body in Time, Performance Journal #21, is a bittersweet collection of very varied writings. This period of the Journal was marked by theme-based issues that offered the opportunity for many different types of writings to come together under a tightly coherent topic. Poetry, essay, interview, image montage, short and long pieces that stray away from dance or dance-making as a focus, all make for a reading that expands from the immediacy of the dance scene — or, perhaps, it was a cross-fertilizing dance scene, much as now. We feature two short articles this time, instead of our usual singular pick. Marlon Barrios manifesto-like piece, “Premises for a Transition on Form, Becoming, Aging and Dissipating,” attests to his immersion in technological/philosophical questions, which then we would experience in dance-tech dot net. Then there is Cathy Weis’ short and poignant piece, “Age-Ism,” which you just have to read. Hope you enjoy and write back.

It is not, for example, graduation from high school that ages you, not losing your virginity, not getting married. It might instead be when you look at the green void in your dog’s eyes and understand that he is thinking about something you can’t guess, or you are walking down the street and you realize that someone turned to look at you, or you smell the uriney smell of impending sickness on one of your parents, or you find a love letter from someone else to your wife, or you see the color blue for the first time in your life: moments, in other words, of epiphany, or of coming absolutely face to face with what is overwhelming. — from “Rounding Up,” author not credited.