ABSTRACT
When I first became engaged in the serious study of classical ballet as a young woman in Paris, I felt as if a large part of me had been awakened from sleep. I began to see the geometrical patterns in the Greek sculptures within the Louvre, mass and weight in the Maillol of the Jardin des Tuileries, transformations in the mimes of Marceau. I felt related to the world through my physical presence in a grand geometry of space, as if I could dance some complex and never-ending mathematical theorem. The sense of separation between mind and body was replaced by a feeling of completeness, in which intellect and emotions were acted out by a wiser source: the unconscious working through the gesture and the grand jeté.
