Dance On Air

This is a large tent, but modestly decorated, so as not to distract from the performance. The atmosphere here has nothing to do with mysterious otherworlds or ethreal statues or sights. It is created entirely by the dancers. There are fewer than a dozen, but the tent is more full of circus folk than most tents.
They are all dressed in shades of black, white and grey, with accents of ivory and silver. The women are in gowns that are akin to ballerina costumes but have the wild embroidery, fluttering ribbons and multiple crinolines of gypsy dresses.
They dance in pairs, with each other or with the men in pinstriped suits and crisp white shirts. They rest their hands on these mens' cheeks, grasp their shoulders in the gentlest way while lifted metres off the ground.
Sometimes the dancers kick up dust with their spangled slippers, black and white dust that sparkle as it hangs in the air.
They leap to and fro in streaks of sparkling silver, creating the illusion of stars shooting across a night sky.
The dance goes beyond beauty, beyond the ballet some patrons have seen in their childhood, beyond the wild gypsy dances some have paid for off a beaten road on a hot summer's night. It is astral. The dance itself is a living thing, breathing and twisting in the centre of the dancers.
It begins to calm, the dancers slowing their movements, going from foites to pirouettes, pulling close their pointed toes, lowering to the ground.
They move away from the centre of the tent, not quite dancing but with too much grace to simply be walking.
A new act begins.
This new performance takes place every hour or so. A young woman, face still with a semblance of girlishness, steps to the centre of the tent. Her steps are clumsy, she falls into a heap several times, collapsing and hauling herself back up. No, she is not pulling herself to stand, but the strings that run from her arms to a platform above the patrons' head are lifting her jerkily. The strings are attached to a wooden cross, in the hands of a man, eyes dark beneath his bowler hat, suit black as jet.
The girl moves like a ragdoll, pulled from a toy chest to dance one more dance. Her gown, a slip of fabric so dilapidated it would scandalize most company, appears unloved. She is weak, looking helplessly from patron to patron. Many step forward to help her, faces mimicking her helplessness when the strings jerk her back.
She is led in a dance, uncoordinated at first, until the music lifts and she rises en pointe. Her arms stretch and wave like birds wings, smile slow, face glowing. The strings are forgotten, twisting with each perfect turn she takes that sets the feather sin her hair to a flurry of silver. She is taller, so light as she moves, sylph like, that many expect her to lift off into the air. When she leaps across the tent they watch carefully to see her slippers touch the floor again.
The puppet master becomes impatient, seizing her back with force. She resists the pulls at first, but he is too strong and she soon returns to her solemn marionette dance. After the majesty of her dance, she is pathetic and pitiful.
When she pulls away to a trunk at the edge of the tent she sends a sorrowful look to the audience, a silent plea as she sinks into the trunk.

Art by Kirsty Mitchell

Text by Lucie MacAulay