It's five in the morning and I'm awake. Hopeless. This is Tuesday (Tablet day) and Suzie and I are going to Rambert tonight. I'll probably go to sleep once the houselights go down.
I came upstairs to the study and did some exercises for my groin injury. This is the downside of being an (extremely) adult ballet student. The physiotherapy bills cost a lot more than the dance classes. And I tried not to turn on the computer. Big mistake. My mind is in gear now. And this is what it's thinking.
There's more than a bit of me that wants to do a dance PhD. I actually want to do it, if I can get it right. The problem is a subject. A PhD is a long hard road and there is no point in choosing a subject that doesn't completely absorb my interest.
I had been toying with the area of dance criticism and how it has depended for its methods on other forms of critical writing. Interesting topic - and do I care enough? Well, I care - but not enough for a PhD. Anyway I don't have an Eng Lit background, so I'm probably not best placed to cross the start line. And I know my own nature very well. The right topic I would power through in two years. The wrong topic would be deadweight.
One of the reasons for this blog is to explore the dancer side of me. But, I'm also using it a little as a notepad to see if I can come up with a PhD topic that would really light me up. I have three Masters (probably the only person on the planet with Masters in theology, business and ballet studies). And my mind keeps revisiting the two years at Heythrop. A few days ago, I dug out some of my essays: there are some really good things there and I might look for a way of putting them on one of my other blogs. I doubt anyone will ever read them: at least they will be relatively safe there if the house were to burn down.
What might light me up is a PhD on ballet spirituality; on the ways that western theatre dance treats the numinous (e.g. Martha Graham, Symphonic Variations , Mark Morris) and how elements of spirituality are expressed in ballet and its practices. I have always been struck by how Ashton, Cunningham and Balanchine were exposed to the Mass and its liturgy in early life. I'd love to talk to former dancers who went into convents and monasteries and explore how - and if - they were able to process the material of their former lives in the context of their later spirituality. I can only think of one: Erin Matthiessen of the Mark Morris Dance Company, who became a Benedictine monk. I wonder how many others there are? (If there is someone whom I'm sure has a book in her on this, it is Joan Acocella, my favourite critic. She's Catholic in her marrow, has a consummate feel for the Catholic sensibility, and she brings that sensibility to her dance writing and her lit crit.)
All fascinating stuff - and it really grabs me. The question is, is it 100,000 words and three years fascinating? I'd really like to stay with Stephanie (I love being her student), but to stay in the dance department, I'd need to flip-flop this and give it a more secular anchor. I'm sure there are ways.
Time to go back to bed.
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