SEEKING MAGIC

When I began thinking of what to write this month many ideas passed through my mind, the ‘pleasure in effort’ principle of dance, that joy in exhaustion, my first run of ‘The Rite of Spring’ by Pina Bausch, having the incredible chance to learn a role in Cafe Müller, but my initial idea just kept coming back. I can’t shake it, I think it needs its space. So I’m giving it to David Bowie. I know, there have been so many things written, so many videos posted, but what I find so striking in his passing was the few days after where I saw how many people, how many artists were equally affected and how they dealt with it. How many of us he touched and how his passing bonded us in a way I cannot ignore.

If you are a social media person surely you were witness to many memories of Bowie, from all stages of life. Every media outlet had their tribute. So many were touched. Through their postings it was almost as if I was discovering a new side to people, their favorite Bowie. Then it hit me how many generations this one artist spanned. How many families loved him, parents and children. How his music, his styles, his movies and interviews spoke for people from all walks of life. It gave space for the outsider, space for weirdness, it even made it cool.

I grew up watching the Labyrinth on VHS, fascinated by his tights, make-up, voice and glass globe juggling. I didn’t know who he was but I was mesmerized, and I danced when he sang ‘dance magic dance’. Years later as a teenager I played him in my car on the way to high-school, dressed in an eclectic array of anything, striped eyelashes painted underneath my eyes, I didn’t recognize it then, but part of him gave me the right to be what I wanted to be. In college he played on my i-pod and I remember warming up to ‘Rebel, rebel’ in the London Opera House, one of my first jobs after graduation. He followed me to Germany where his last album is stored in my cloud. I bought it the day he died. I listened to it while cooking. Earlier that day, when we read the news both my partner and I cried. We cried for a man we never met. It wasn’t long, but we cried. We cried over breakfast. It felt like such a loss. It felt like we lost someone we knew. At least we knew, we lost someone who influenced us, and perhaps we didn’t realize it until then. So that night I listened to the latest album. It was strange to listen to a man postmortem. To hear his voice singing ‘You know i’ll be free, just like that blue bird, now ain’t that just like me’. It was strange, but it was beautiful.

Here is an artist who spans decades speaking to some part of people and he found a way to say goodbye true to his fashion. He sings us his last year. We hear his pain, we hear the fear, we hear the hope and acceptance too. And I cannot help but feel that we are all more connected because of it.

The day after he passed our company had training with Theo Clinkard who produced a beautiful phrase to ‘Five years’ and I think all of our hearts swelled. We danced for us, for Bowie, for each other, to warm up, to learn, to move, for life. We are a company with three generations of dancers. Three generations dancing to Bowie, smiling, singing along, watching one another. It was magic. Perhaps it was this moment when I thought, it isn’t just a celebrity passing, it is a great artist. A man who can inspire such moments. And I think that is what is so important about this topic. The life of David Bowie impacted people around the world. He inspired artists as well as the teenager daring to be who she wanted to be. But what is so remarkable is the unity after death. The celebration and understanding we now share. The new knowledge of which Bowie phase influenced your friend, colleague, partner most. His gift of something to listen to, something to contemplate.