Helen Poyner writes:
…dance has a unique contribution to make to celebrating, developing or transforming a community’s relationship to its environment.
Dancers and communities: a collection of writings about dance as a community art
edited by Helen Poyner and Jaqueline Simmonds
Pub. Australian Dance Council, 1997
.
I did some dancing in Antarctica, on the ship and on the bases. This was the free-form, disco party style variety, where anything goes. A particularly memorable dance I had was with the FTO (Field Training Officer) who took me up Mount Henderson, behind Mawson. We danced and danced, for ages it seemed, on our last night on the ship before reaching Hobart. Just weeks after our return I heard from a friend that he’d died, in an avalanche in New Zealand.
When I heard about the death, my mind went straight to Mount Henderson. And to the dancing.
I relived every moment I remembered of this young man.
He had put crampons on my feet, and guided me carefully up the rocky ridge. One false move, he said, and I would slide into the deep lake below. A saline lake, as I remember, deep blue, and never freezing over.
He was Dave Gardner. The Australian Antarctic Division wrote an obituary:
http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=13252
.
I also did some Tai Chi, on the Aurora’s helideck, and on the ice – wherever I was.
It felt connecting, not just to this place, but to many places where people practice the same dance.