When I first signed up for a week-long Isadora Duncan Dance Intensive at the 92nd Street Y, it was an expression of faith in myself: emphasizing the "free" in freelance to take off a few mornings in a row, and breaking out of my usual cycle of 24-7 go-go-go pacing in favor of something more contemplative than clicking "refresh" on my Blackberry while on a conference call. Spending yesterday and today under the tutelage of my almost unimaginably divine, Dostoevsky-quoting, Botticelli-adoring teacher, Jeanne Bresciani, learning an entirely new but natural language of movement, wholly sensual and fluid yet deliberate, and dancing to live piano while wearing classically-styled silk gowns has been a dream. It's sort of what I imagined when I was at the Rodin Museum in Paris and learned that Isadora had lived there briefly; envisioning her sliding in reverie across the unbroken grass under a starry sky. Today in class we were volcanoes for a while and then did this Dionysian pouncing thing. When I left I felt my creativity and sense of self profoundly renewed, but in my mind it was the sensation of anticipating another escape tomorrow. Then I stopped for coffee, and "La Vie en Rose" was playing, and it started to snow for a moment and I experienced an exuberant sense of gratitude as I realized that what felt like a method of slipping out of the world suddenly became a new chance to slip into it. And what better to take that leap in than a slip dress worthy of the muses themselves?
[Violet chiffon pleated "Goddess" gown by A.B.S., $309 at Bluefly]
Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST-ish.
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