The body moves involuntarily, constantly. Breathe, circulation, blinking, adjustment of weight and balance. We sneeze, hiccup, cough, burp. And then the body moves voluntarily near constantly – deep stillness is rare and captivating. We make an effort to walk, to run, to sit, to cross our legs, to roll our shoulders, to shake another’s hand. Depending on culture we move our heads more or less to speak, move our hands to illustrate and emphasize. We cross our arms, twist our feet, slouch, stand straight. We do these things with more or less awareness. And these movements are universal and they are individually specific. Some cultural and social patterns are easily spotted and many motions are universal in occurrence (interpretation not necessarily so much) but the particular combinations, inflections, amplitudes, contexts and meanings of each person’s movement are unique to himself to his particular confluence of cultural, social and economic positions, familial traditions, era, friends, training. Particularly those movements that occur with little to no conscious thought or awareness are to me the vulnerable points of a personality, the hole in the armor where you see the naked self through his adornment, without acting, without pretense.
A woman starts on stage. Still. She rubs her head, slowly, thoughtfully. Thinking of something entirely not here. She scratches at her skin. She pries at imperfections. She bites the skin from her nail; she tastes it and realizes she’s doing it again. She stops. She begins to fidget in a less distant way. Scratching her leg, combing her hair behind her ear. Pressing her palms together. Recrosses her legs. She rests.
She spasms, to the right. A quick shudder and a short cry, or her mouth opens, or she breathes. She breathes so hard it’s a yelp. She didn’t mean to. She knew it was going to happen. Well not really, but just in the moment she knew – a split second before you did.
To cover she moves, thinking about twitching, she twitches. And her hands fidget and she stretches her back. And she tries to explain – it’s like a sneeze, just say bless you – and her hands won’t stop the harder she tries. They hold each other and squirm together. And maybe she should stop talking and just trace images in the air. It‘d be clearer. Movement isn’t weird if it’s dancing. But there’s no dancing about architecture, no dancing at the dinner table. Making faces is for kids. She makes a face at the saddest person. He makes a sad face. She makes a funnier face. He makes one too. Smile. Shake it off. Her hand is a spider – slow then quick. Pounce. Two-finger kick-line. He smiles. Shake it off. They re-enter the cold stream of conversation and sadness moves back in.
She shakes again – she definitely squeaks but she tries to swallow it and it’s hollow and no one smiles. She goes to the bathroom and her hands explain herself to the mirror. Without words it’s better – it’s like a song.
