Three Muses by Martha Anne Toll
Author:Martha Anne Toll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00
22
1963
Six weeks later, John took his seat ten rows from the stage. Breathless with excitement, he felt his future distilled to a single purpose: to present Katya Symanova the bouquet of white roses that lay in his lap like hope.
She was dancing Present Tense and Charged Particles. For Present Tense, there was no conductor and no set. Only Katya, wearing flowing violet, lying in the middle of the stage, her partner on top of her. Oh, to be that man.
In the back corner, a pianist dug into the keyboard; music pregnant with vigor, then contemplative and questioning. Katya rose and spun, gliding on puffs of music, truer than air, lighter than vapor. Bounding and turning, her movements tracing a circle of moods. Earthy coupling displaced the gauzy, fairytale quality of Three Muses.
Johnâs heart beat to Katyaâs rhythms, accelerated with her jumps. He soared with optimism, certain her power flowed from something deeper than years of training. She was a splendid, stunning puzzle. He was awash in a mysterious sensation: she was a song being born.
***
Sheathed in gold, Katya rose en pointe to prepare her entrance. Charged Particles was choreographed to embody the threats of the atomic age. âMankind was never meant to split atoms,â Mr. Y had said. âIt is grotesque to imperil the future of the species.â Katyaâs job was to convey danger. âFast!â Mr. Yanakov had insisted. âAs if someone were prodding your torso with a hot poker.â
With a surge of energy, she spread her legs and jumped, arms overhead. More than anything, Mr. Yanakov wanted a shock wave of physicality. Katya bent overâher back to the audienceâclasping her ankles. Her partner flipped her and set her down, legs thrust upward, her body a V. He grasped her midriff as dancers twisted around them in a tightening circle.
Katya felt sexual, menacing. âSet the stage on fire!â Mr. Yanakov had admonished. The music hammered and the corps stamped and thrust their rears. Lying flat, Katya put her hands by her ears and arched her body, then pulled up, opened and closed her legs, contracting and releasing, tracing a jagged ellipse. She seared lines through air, sharp as flame, molten as hot steel.
Someone was out there. To whomever it was, she sent a heat ray.
***
John waited anxiously as the curtain rose on Charged Particles. Against a huge screen of the periodic table, dancers in black and tangerine ran helter-skelterâbumping each other, somersaulting, and rolling offstage. Beating drums punctuated occasional bursts of angry music. Johnâs fragile equanimity started to rupture, attacked by cigar-laced grunts in Herr Kommandantâs sitting room, officers stomping to songs that had lost their music.
To see his ballerina defy physics and illuminate the wind, John marshaled the discipline heâd learned from hard-earned experience andâhe conceded grudginglyâtortured sessions with Dr. Roth. He reminded himself he was safe in New York.
Katya Symanova danced like shaken sheet metal. Her performance was naked and personal. If it felt voyeuristic to watch, John refused to avert his eyes. To do so would degrade and ignore her art.
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