Image from My Live in Movement by Margaret Morris
For when you feel maybe a little lost, unmotivated, or uninspired, I gift you some thoughts from a dancing summer school.
Margaret Morris created a new movement technique in the 1920s, a rebellion against the harms of ballet technique. Morris was a dancer in her own right, but her style was so beneficial for the health and longevity of those she taught she developed the therapeutic aspects further. I found Morris through images from dancing summer schools of the past, and I was astounded to discover the style is still going today. I’ve been doing Margaret Morris Movement (MMM) for a couple of years online, this is my second summer school.
But here’s the thing. Margaret feels like a sister under the skin.
More about her: she was a dancer, but she married the artist J D Fergusson, and she became an artist in her own right. Her dance teaching was a precursor to contemporary dance, ahead of its time. But she was also inspired by the depictions of poses on Ancient Greek vases ‘the Greek positions’. She innovated techniques to underpin creation. She incorporated yoga breathing and some of the physical shapes inspired by yoga too. In her biography, she gives notes on diet, exercise, and ageing. There’s this sense across everything she did of an alert mind, always synthesising and creating. I love her body of her work. I love tracing her footsteps (embodiments?) by learning her dances, and her creative pedagogy. I have this sense of her, this sense of her spirit, and I like her, a lot.
I know at some point Morris will inform my practice, an art idea or something. I don’t know when or how. But I love this sense of discovering and researching. I love picking up new styles of movement—like learning a new language—the grammar, vocab, and syntax. I’m never been an accomplished dancer, I’m not naturally strong or gifted. I dance though, the way I approach speaking and listening to French and German—applying my schoolgirl lessons, using guesswork, and enthusiasm to get me through.
I write about Morris, and learning MMM to convey this point: enjoy your research! Find those figures from the past, your guides. Find them, enjoy their work, and draw solace from the path they have walked. The tracks left for you.
Don’t find people so you can chastise yourself about what you have not done though, don’t find people in order to discount yourself! Assemble your inspirational figures to feel included. Think about who enables you to do what you do now. I’m carefully avoiding the word hero, that gesture of putting the other on a pedestal isn’t an expansive, permission-feeling one.
Margaret Morris keeps me excited about art and embodiment. And so I end on this: who lifts and inspires you?
The Solace of Those Who Have Already Walked The Path