My FIRST gas mask

[Rob Divine]

I bought my first gas mask today - an Israeli M15 black rubber beauty. I can't wait to get it in the dance studio and put on Psyclon Nine and see how it modifies sensory perception and resulting movement. For too long I've kept two distinct categories of art in my life. The world of the classical dancer and the goth/industrial/fetish/vampyre world. I've excelled in both worlds but I made a point in my life to keep them separate and distinct. Maybe for fear of diluting my resolve to be the best I can be in each. Or maybe for the more basic fear of opposing polarities of subcultures within Mother Art simply rejecting or repelling each other.

Well thats just plain stupid. I used to be more of a theatrical renegade. Once upon a time I would cross ballet technique with goth pageantry and come up with something that neither subculture had ever seen. That was 1994 and that formula worked. Why did I stop? I think I needed time to train to develop my identity and resolve within the confines and specific rulesets of the dance tradition. Check. Got that now. Its time to go back to the secret formula.

For too long in my life has dance technique served as both the vehicle and the message. Well its not the message, its just one conveyance to speak to the message. This whole other world that I'm a part of is soon going to bleed all over the pristine white tights of the dance technician. And there will be a whole other blood-spattered message to be had.

Take for example the gas mask in a dance piece. Image the possibilities of a piece based on breath play. Imagine any one of the sick, freakish things we do in the goth/industrial/fetish/vampyre world combined with barrel turns and tour jetes. There is a difference between a dance piece, and a theater piece. This is now theater (revived). And this is why I'm excited about my first gas mask.....