dance #26

Evolving bodies

Text:
affinity/analogy/adaptation/”active movements through thickets”/concealment

Context:
Darwin on Lamarck
“Analogical Resemblances—We can understand, on the above views, the very important distinction between real affinities and analogical or adaptive resemblances. Lamarck first called attention to this subject, and he has been ably followed by…others. The resemblance in the shape of the body and in the fin-like anterior limbs between dugongs and whales, and between these two orders of mammals and fishes, are analogical. So is the resemblance between a mouse and a shrew-mouse (Sorex), which belong to different orders; and the still closer resemblances…between the mouse and a small marsupial animal (Antechinus) of Australia. These latter resemblances may be accounted for, as it seems to me, by adaptation for similarly active movements through thickets and herbage, together with concealment from enemies.

Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 583

12:10 a.m. A 30 second gesture in the study conjuring the affinity of bodies for other bodies. Feeling my body getting pulled into new forms. Conjuring fin-form. Feeling my back body and arms pulling into the formation of a fin. Affinity.

Alice wants to play on this cold, cold night. -16 degrees Celsius and falling.

~ by nmyers on January 16, 2009.