Dress A Day, Day 21: Peel and Serve

Wednesday, May 26

Sometimes a girl just needs to dance. And dance, and dance again. I did four takes of this dress dance, determined to peel off the layers that were covering the essence of this woman in this dress. Earlier in the day, I flew through Brooklyn on my bike in it, the wind peeling the dress from my thighs and revealing bare skin to the world. I was not shy or flattered or upset by the stares and shouts, maybe I was baring my legs to the world in place of a public speech to proclaim my growing strength. But nightfall in the studio revealed my vulnerability, and a sense of doubt and dissatisfaction played itself out as I kept going back to record another round of dance (see two more takes on my youtube channel).

Don't remember exactly where I got this one: was it Israel or San Francisco? Wore it rarely, but always with Pina Bausch's Nelken on my mind. Rediscovered it in Israel just this past January, in a bag that had traveled from Tel Aviv to Haifa to Sderot to Tel Aviv again over the course of six years while it waited to reunite with me. I fell in love with it again, or maybe for the first time, and so I have my aunts to thank for safekeeping it all these years.