Seconds | Rehersal

Photo: Dirk Buwalda

Choreographer: Paul Lightfoot

I read in a book that the stars can take you anywhere. I've never wanted to be an astronaut, because of the helmets. If I were up there on the moon, or by the Milky Way, I'd want to feel the stars round my head, I'd want them in my hair, the way they are in the paintings of the gods. I'd want my whole body to feel the space, the empty space and points of light. That's how dancers must feel, dancers and acrobats, just for a second that freedom.

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Time is a great deadener, people forget, get bored, grow old, go away. She said that not much has happened between us anyway, historically speaking. But history is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe knot it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing, a cat’s cradle.'

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I thought about the dog and was suddenly very sad, sad for her death, for my death, for all the inevitable dying that comes with change. There's no choice that doesn't mean a loss.

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Families, real ones, are chairs and tables, and the right number of cups, I had no means of joining one, and no means of dismissing my own. She had tied a thread around my button, to tug when she pleased.

Quoted from: ‘Sexing the Cherry’ and ‘Oranges are not the only fruit’ by Jeanette Winterson