At the fund raining ball

Tomorrow I am going to a fundraising comedy night at the Bloomsbury Theatre. This reminded me of a poem my brother wrote:

On the sunbed, dead
The picture in the local mag had said,
'At the fund raining ball, (sic.)
Local lovely Debbie, forty.'

Poor Debbie.

Dance, dance, dance

My life as a ballerina began at age 4, when Mum took me and my bouncing blonde curls to a Saturday morning class at the Villenuva Dance Academy. I will always think that sounds like a school for dancing ice-creams.

Ballet age 4 is all about good toes, naughty toes, and various mimes that transport you far away from being a four-year-old with bouncing blonde curls. Once upon a time I was a naughty imp stealing apples from a garden, or a graceful swan soaring high. Sometimes, us little ballerinas had to be a witch who drinks a deadly potion, but I was scared that pretending to die meant dying in real life, so I never was the witch.

Forever ready to put on a show (with brother Jonathan)

Growing up meant more serious exercises: tendus, fondues (dancing cheeses?!), grand battements and jetés. Age 11, I was selected for a special advanced class for students with "distinction". I wore pointe shoes for the very first time. Dancing en pointe is painful, thrilling, and so very grown up. Though the lasting legacy is that I have baby-sized feet: at 5 feet 9 inches tall I wear size 4 shoes, because dancing on your tippy-toes four days a week during puberty doesn't allow for much growth.

Being an adolescent ballet dancer is tough. Suddenly, you're too big, your legs are these great long levers that you're supposed to lift at impossible angles to your protesting body. Training for my second major exam, I tore my left hamstring, and six months later, the right. Thus ended my career as a ballerina. (Although it was always clear I would be too tall. Even Darcey Bussell, a "tall" ballerina, is only 5 feet 7. And anyway, I was too "clever" to go into dance, a career in science beckoned...)

The injuries, and subsequent back problems, were tough, frustrating, but made be want to dance even more. To overcome my injuries would be a great achievement. Age 17, I won the Senior Prize for Achievement at the renamed Poole Academy of Dance. My trophy was a treasure for one year, and then I had to give it back, and leave for University College London.

UCL owns the Bloomsbury Theatre and as such has thriving arts societies: Dance, Drama, Stage Crew, Musicals. I joined Dance. Going to university coincided with, or perhaps forced, a darker side of me. Out went the blonde curls, in came jet black, poker straight locks and gothic tendencies. My studies of the history of madness led me to learn of the mediaeval witch-hunts and then I thought: why not, finally, dance the witch? So in 2005 I choreographed Sabat, named after the witch's gathering, for the UCLU Dance Society show. If I thought dancing en pointe was grown up, conceiving and birthing this expression of my imagination was almost ancient. Three ballet dancers and five tap dancers envoke the persecution of women that was rife for three hundred years.

Click the image to see the video of Sabat on YouTube

It's six years since I performed that dance. Five years since I went to a ballet class. Boyfriends, work and apathy get in the way, don't they? But it's no excuse. So on the 117th anniversary of game-changing choreographer Martha Graham's birth, I went back to the barre, back to ballet class. Today I can hardly walk as my muscles scream out in protest once again. But I'm not going to stop. Ballet is not just in my bones, but in my ligaments, my tendons and my muscles. And since three years ago, tattooed into my skin.

Ballet dancer tattoo on my left wrist, inked November 2008.

I'd love to hear about anyone else's experiences of going back to dance as an adult, or even starting from scratch. I'm going to adult classes at the Central School of Ballet because it's just round the corner from my new office. But there are loads more studios around London offering classes for grown-ups: Danceworks, City Academy and Expressions to name a few. Many more across the country, I'm sure.

Why I went to church today

"Hallelujah, hallelujah, Christ the Lord is risen." These words ring in my ears and from my voice. Why am I singing them? Because I am in a church on Easter Sunday. Why am I singing them when I have no belief in Christ, the Lord or the resurrection? Because I am taking part in a cultural event that has been celebrated by my family for the whole of my life. And, indeed, much longer than that.

I was thirteen when I marched downstairs one Sunday morning and presented my mother with a list of reasons why I didn't believe in God. She read them, offered a few standard placations, and never forced me go to church again (though she often pleaded). A small pivot in my evolution from child to adult. After that, I went to church only for religious holidays and too many funerals, but stayed mute for anything other than the hymns, and even then my churlish teenage mind refused to sing any words relating to the Holy Trinity.

But now I'm back and I'm singing my heart out. The reasons are many but mainly this: I am precisely twice thirteen years old, but the amount I've matured has far more than doubled. I've considered my family's religion and I've realised that the worth in normal, everyday Christianity is community. Going to church and singing about God does not betray my atheist beliefs, it does not bring me closer to Him but it does bring me closer to my family.

My parent's local church: St John's, Broadstone, Dorset. Real photo postcard by R & M Meatyard (date unknown). From alwyn_ladell on Flickr.

In a BHA survey last year, fewer than half the respondents who identified as Christian said they believed Jesus Christ was a real person who died, came back to life and was the son of God. Indeed my father, who goes to church every Sunday, confessed to me five years ago that he does not believe Jesus is the son of God. There are many similarly-minded people who go to church simply to meet other people, to enjoy a shared experience, or just as part of routine. We are creatures of habit, and sometimes the loss of something that has been with you all your life is too painful to bear. So Dad goes with Mum (who is less enlightened than he) every week to a beautiful building to sing and praise the wonders of life. The difference is Mum believes God made these bright and beautiful things; Dad thinks not. Does it really matter? Church brings them together, and today I'm together with them, and they're happy I'm there.

Last week, I even went to a church on my own, of my own volition. Four years ago my Catholic brother died. To mark this, I lit a candle in his memory and wrote him a song lyric in a book for prayers. Churches aren't just buildings of religion, they are anchors. I spent my grief there, rather than at home, or in an art gallery, or a pub, or anywhere else he identified with because there is a tradition of lighting candles in churches and it is comforting. A place to deposit my sadness and my loss, and then leave.

The words of Martin Rees on winning the Templeton Prize struck a chord with me: "[churchgoing is] a common traditional ritual which one participates in as part of one's culture." He hammers the nail right on the head.

The comfort of a chiropractor

I wrote this last year while recovering from a week-long illness. I decided not to publish it then. But due to the recent spate of posts along the lines of "don't call me stupid", exploring why some people might be drawn to alternative medicine, I thought it was timely to post about my experience at the hands of a chiropractor.

I've been ill for a week, so my thoughts have naturally wandered to medicine. My drug of choice has been giant chocolate buttons. Not strictly a medicine, but the bright purple packaging, the crack of each button in my crunching teeth and the sweet sugar rush is so comforting. This reminds me of chiropractic: a questionable treatment, but in my experience, a big comfort.

I was thirteen years old and training for a major ballet exam when I tore my left hamstring. Six months later, I tore the right. Scar tissue formed, the tight muscles resulted in chronic back pain. My dad took me to local chiropractor and family friend, Beth, who had treated his bad back.

Who loves the feeling of making their knuckles pop? This is what spinal adjustment, the technique chiropractors employ, feels like. This kind of immediate relief is very important for a teenager whose dreams of being a ballet dancer have just been ripped apart. I had no idea that chiropractic was founded on pseudo-science. Why would I? I grew up in a typical Daily Mail household where little was questioned. And would I have cared? Probably not. After weekly sessions of adjustment, massage and ultrasound treatment, I could dance again.

It was possibly, and probably, the more standard techniques of deep tissue massage and ultrasound that healed my aching body. A physio at the nearest hospital could have treated me in the same way. But Beth was a family friend and known in my local community. When my dad took me to a practitioner who had helped him, I felt cared for. My Dad was looking after me. During my sessions with Beth, I chatted about my university plans and she even helped me choose what to study.

Personal recommendation, community spirit and desperation are all reasons why people, including myself, have gone to see the chiropractor. Not because they are stupid, defiant, or even ignorant. Because sometimes it's just where they end up, steered by family, friends and promises. And when those promises turn out to be true, when the treatment seems to work, then the cycle continues.

Undiluted spirit

Last night I claimed that whisky was the most scientific drink, "ever". This superlative was uttered with little evidence, like many claims made under the influence of alcohol. But there is some fascinating science behind the making and drinking of my favourite tipple. I rambled a little about the different flavour molecules that give whisky its rich and smoky taste. The fine words below, written by Andy Connelly for the Guardian, explain very well what I was trying to say:

The chemicals that are reaching your nose are a complex mixture, the culmination of distillation and years maturation. But they are not a fixed set, you can still alter and change the bouquet that greets your nose and so the flavour of the whisky simply by adding water. Adding water to whisky changes the concentration of alcohol and so increases the volatility of alcohol-soluble hydrophobic or long-chain compounds such as the fruity esters, increasing the fruity aspects of the whisky's flavour.

In contrast, smoky phenolics and roasted nut and cereal-flavoured nitrogen-containing compounds are water-soluble, and the volatility of these is reduced with water addition and so the smoky aspect of the whisky's flavour is reduced. However, the addition of ice reduces the temperature of the whisky and hence reduces the volatility of all the compounds, leading to a reduced aroma and a diminished taste.

Which is why you should never, never add ice to your single malt.

I've just bought an eye-watering Bruichladdich single cask whisky. Single cask means the whisky has come straight from the cask it's matured in, and not mixed with anything. This whisky is undiluted, so it's a whacking 66% alcohol. The whisky you buy in the shops or most bars is always watered down to make it more palatable to the average imbiber. It's ready-diluted, at around 40%. The beauty of my whisky (from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society) is that I can water down the neat spirit to suit my tastes, releasing those delicious flavour molecules as I wish. Or not, if I'm feeling particularly masochistic.

Cheers!

From Then On

My brother wrote this. It seems fitting, now.

From then on
It’ll always be different.
Quite apart from the pain
And the grief
And her room unchanged,
In the street
They’ll always be different;
From then on.

From then on
They’ll wonder at death,
But you’ll know.
They’ll ask you round;
If you don’t want to go,
Understand,
But still wonder at death;
From then on.

From then on
You’ll wish you could scream.
You carry emotions
From room to room
And they have small notion
Of gloom.
Every day’s a bad dream
From then on.

Paul Maddocks
26 January 1969 – 19 April 2007

Update

I haven't written much on this blog. But I have been writing other things, for other blogs. So rather than leave this bare, I thought I'd put up links to my posts elsewhere.

First thing I'll link to is the most personal piece I've written. It's about the tattoo on my back, and why I had it done. The post was written for Wellcome Collection, because they used a photograph of my tattoo to advertise one of their Skin exhibition events.

Click on the photograph to read more.