danced by herself
[reproduced by permission of Toni Stuart 2004]

video mix: Kai Lossgott.

text & voice: Toni Stuart.

sound mix: Alex van Heerden.

slow slow
quick quick
slow

slow slow
quick quick
slow

clinched
by cliches and curried candles
crazed with romance
she dances

slow slow
quick quick
slow

but dampened desire
declares a soul solo
constructing a callous concerto
ripping irreverently
through
wan wounds

slow slow
quick quick
slow

please apparently appear
with your
humble humour that roars raucously
and strips
her
to her
core
she wants
to taste your tenderness

whispers
echo your thoughts
feint solitary sighs
fly your feelings

slow slow

please apparently appear

quick quick
return to index page
return to show


and she will
share her shadows
let you slide into
her secluded silhouette between
seductive sphinx and sheepish child
slow

so she can breathe
your still spirit

she is eternally free
in a timeless abyss
of desire and hope

slow slow

whether you appear
or not is unimportant
because she is now
free
within dampened desire

quick quick

free
within her dream of your dance

slow slow
quick quick
slow

free
to desire
from her placid place of passion
in her realm of reverie
A poem "about growing up and learning to be in the body". Most of the footage eventually used was randomly shot during the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown a year previously.
Toni dancing by herself in the late afternoon sun. We were spellbound by the heat, wind and dust in Tulbagh, where Alex and his computer live in a renovated stable. We slept most of the weekend.

"This poem has taken on a life of its own," says Toni. "It has gone through so many forms and been with me this past year, and no matter where I read it or what I do with it, people love it."

"It was written in 2003, at a time when I first felt something for someone, and he did not reciprocate, and I discovered I was OK feeling that love even without him being there," says Toni. "I realised I was feeling and accepting my body for the first time in my life."