Cosmic Libido

In dance anthropology one of our main concerns is the formation of identity via dance. Group identity, individual identity, national identity, it is always shifting, and dance is a pattern of interacting that not only mirrors this but also actively changes it. In my summer reading I read background literature connecting dance to ethnicity, race, gender, class, politics, proprioception, memory, and kinetic energy. All of it insightful, working deep within me to create changes, some is also deeply inspirational. The early feminists, for example, are amazing.

"Her libido is cosmic, just as her unconscious is worldwide. Her writing (and dancing) can only keep going, without ever inscribing or discerning contours...She alone dares and wishes to know from within, where she has never ceased to hear the resonance of fore-language." "In woman there is always more or less of the mother who makes everything all right, who nourishes and who stands up against separation; a force that will not be cut off but will knock the wind out of the codes...Personal history blends together with the history of all women, as well as national and world history. She is an integral part of all liberations." "Write! and your self-seeking text will know itself better than flesh and blood, rising, insurrectionary dough kneading itself, with sonorous, perfumed ingredients, a lively combination of flying colors, leaves, and rivers plunging into the sea we feed...and everything we will be calls us to the unflagging, intoxicating, unappeasable search for love." Helen Cioux in The Laugh of the Medusa.