{"id":13756,"date":"2018-08-15T10:50:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T10:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/works.raqsmediacollective.net\/?p=13756"},"modified":"2025-02-19T08:25:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T08:25:05","slug":"spinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/works.raqsmediacollective.net\/index.php\/2018\/08\/15\/spinal\/13756","title":{"rendered":"Spinal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Spinal<\/strong><\/em>
<\/em><\/strong>Shown at: ‘Not Yet at Ease’, FirstSite, Colchester, United Kingdom (2018) | ‘Spinal’, Frith Street Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2019)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video
Duration, 10′ 24″<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spinal<\/em> is a study of the vertebral column that brings together an anatomical model and a dancer\u2019s body in a conversation of gestures, stances, steps, positions, and caresses. The positions traced by the dancer\u2019s body echo the arrangement in John Singer Sargent\u2019s iconic 1912 painting \u201cGassed”, where a line of wounded soldiers, blinded by a nerve gas attack, hold on to each other, shuffling towards an uncertain goal. Hovering, too, is an image of the dancer\u2019s hands caressing a pedagogical model of the human back-bone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This exchange references the silences and elisions to avoid the term \u2018shell shock\u2019 (which has evolved to become PTSD today) by British Military Authorities. The \u201cnervous ailment\u201d – which authorities claimed was only experienced by officers and not British soldiers, or soldiers imported from other parts of Empire – was said to be linked to \u2018disturbances in the spinal column’ caused by repeated vibrations from gunfire and bomb explosions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spinal <\/em>attends to early twentieth century\u2019s dislocations as a move towards understanding human fragility and endurance. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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