I think I'm dancing. Am I dancing?

Starting in the middle, because that's how it seems to have started.

The company is working on a piece called "Origins," that engages with theories and stories of the origin of the universe and the laws of physics, as well as the theories and experiments behind the creation of atomic weaponry.

As part of today's rehearsal and creative work, I was assigned a random equation from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to embody the symbols in movement and shape.

[When I can figure out how to snag the original and paste in here, I will.]

In a room full of dancers living out similar shapes and patterns, engaged in the same basic challenge, it wasn't hard to be another moving body in the space. I retain nearly nothing from the IPS (Introduction to Physical Science) I took in 8th grade because my father insisted that everyone needed to learn some basic physics (hence why I never took Latin), so the symbols meant little to me. I think I remember delta indicates change; I can recognize basic math symbols like an 'equals sign.' I gave myself the motivation of having to smuggle and preserve a text I didn't understand: the equation was important, even if I didn't understand it. I translated the equation.

It was harder later to show Shula Strassfeld what I'd done. I'd been fully visible to the room when I created the sequence, but it was embarrassing or revealing to show what I'd done to one person individually.

We worked and cleaned up my sequence, and then I asked what it was I'd done. The answer is I'd used the symbols of the equation to create movement new to my body, perhaps new to the world. The structure of the exercise had pulled from me much more than if I'd just been told to create an eight-beat phrase. I asked if what I'd done reflected the page or me. Answer: both. Some of the meaning, some of the shapes from the page were there. Some of my personality and narrative, emotional instincts were there.

Creation not ex nihilo, but using a little tohu, a little vohu.