Outside the Metropolitan at closing, after Hatshepsut has closed her eyes for sleep, after the muses have covered their nakedness with a good, thick comforter, a band of acrobats break-dance on the sidewalk.
First, they show off some moves, jumping, spinning, twisting, and twirling. They get the audience to clap in rhythm. The audience is a big crowd, and lacks the proper genetic codes for keeping rhythm, yet it works.
They drag unwilling volunteers into their circle, though they lose one old Asian man and are outwitted by a four year old girl.
When the finale is prepared, volunteers sweating underneath Fifth Avenue’s sun, they collect donations. They challenge the audience, guiding the bidding like auctioneers on whose country will be last to submit. We hear from Australia and Denmark and Sweden, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Montana.
And finally, the finale is ready, the performer takes a running start and leaps–no, glides–but I am slow on the trigger of my camera, and I only get the air behind the jump. And though that air may still be moving, it might just as easily be still, and the volunteers might merely be waiting for that jump.
The photo doesn’t lie, but it admits nothing.
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