Let’s take a deeper look into arabesque, best known as a position in ballet vocabulary, and investigate its purpose. What is the legacy of arabesque? What does this shape, so strongly associated with classical aesthetic, offer us today in learning functional movement for a variety of applications? Can it be transformed into or rediscovered as a significant fractal piece to reveal meaningful information and functional relevance for multiple modes and dynamic movement?
Some questions I am juggling with is the validity, necessity of form and what makes a form go beyond form and how do we move through or inhabit forms or positions with autonomy or in a balanced relationship?
What if we can bring new values to arabesque as a symbol, as a form?
A symbol for the revelation of principles, like the interdependent structural relationships in the human body. A symbol for the essential asymmetrical organisation of the human body during locomotion. A symbol for the expertise in weight distribution and in the orienting of masses towards one-legged support.
The architectural and dynamic deployment into the arabesque would then provide an opportunity for a thorough study of essential functional patterns of the human body and consequently an important form for developing and transforming our movement potential.
This is an advanced class but experience with the classical vocabulary is not required!
Kira Kirsch