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| Leonard Beaumont Dancing Nymphs 1934 linocut British Museum |
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| Henri Fantin-Latour Three Maenads Dancing in a Landscape 1903 lithograph British Museum |
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| Jean-Louis Forain Dancer before 1931 drawing British Museum |
from Crossing Disappearing Behind Them
Being minor means that an era haunts a phrase of ruined memorabilia,
floral commemorative move across you.
A quoted feeling hangs over the ruin, the vinyl, the rain,
each in its landscape. The vinyl, the ruin, each
has memorized the original one in each of us
who wears a paraphrasable vastness
in virtue of arriving late.
– Marjorie Welish, from The Windows Flew Open (1991)
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| Ethel Gabain Colombine à sa toilette 1916 lithograph British Museum |
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| Ethel Gabain Dancer Resting 1916 lithograph British Museum |
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| Ethel Gabain Sylphide - the Dancer 1912 lithograph British Museum |
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| Barbara Hepworth Two Figures of Ballet Dancers 1950 drawing British Museum |
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| Barbara Hepworth Scènes de Ballet (proof-cover for exhibition catalog) 1950 photolithograph British Museum |
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| Ambrose McAvoy Study of Ballet Dancer before 1927 drawing British Museum |
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| Rolf Nesch Dance on the Quay - Midnight Sun 1948 lithograph British Museum |
An Emptiness Distributed
Without people,
a train station, an auditorium
seems visionary. The lower level
smells of insulation, and wind
from a still lower level, but no one is applying it.
You can feel the paths blowing through pores,
evaporating.
A slow torrent
falling headlong like escalators, or
perhaps streams run by electricity.
Have you ever seen escalators from the side?
Only the handrails move.
Levels,
each with its own set of handrails,
where the farther level is
not necessarily the deeper.
Someone is coming up
wearing a cap. Looking where his is facing
he would be the man striking
the match in the small room on stage.
Acting is more candid seen from the side
because it is pitched to someone else.
Another man is coming up
on another escalator. A few people
are stepping onto a Down escalator, a dance consisting of –
there could be a dance
consisting of bunches of people stepping
onto and riding banks of escalators
into fresh water, and having pushed off,
becoming slowly sedate.
– Marjorie Welish, from Handwritten (1979)
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| John Wells Dancer 1951 linocut British Museum |
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| John Wells Dancer 1951 linocut on blue paper British Museum |
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| Fred Williams Dancer 1955-56 etching, aquatint, drypoint British Museum |
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| Fred Williams The Can-Can 1955-56 etching, aquatint, engraving British Museum |