Movement Vocabulary
- Reverend James Squire
- 12 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Photo of Meredith Rainey in "Movements" by George Balanchine
Recently Vicki and I attended a Ballet X performance in the theatre at Bryn Mawr College. Before going I was talking with my son in law, Meredith Rainey, about the upcoming ballet as he had seen it the night before. I asked him, “How was it?” He commented on the pieces and indicated that I should look for the movement vocabulary in the various pieces. I told him that improvement vocabulary was a great phrase. In essence what was the piece saying to you?
What I saw were great athletes, beauty, and an incredible evening performance. When I got my program at the door, I immediately read the bios of the various performers and didn’t read the notes which are in the program.” May I Cut In?”, “was a love letter to the music of Piazzolla, the work finds inspiration in the emotional posture of tango and the celebration of classical form. In the tension between comfort and risk, the marriage of movement and music finds a home.”
I didn’t see that at all namely because I wasn’t looking for it. So, I pressed him more in our next phone call. His explanation for my failure to see what the choreographer was saying is because there are times when my own experience is also valid when viewing. He used an image that when we go to a museum and spend time, we see different things each time we view a painting. It could be a different focus. That is why we return time after time. But what you are seeing in a painting is your unique experience. We sometimes see what we are looking for.
What a great many people have said is that members of the ballet are possibly the best athletes in our city. Nakobe Dean famously started incorporating ballet into his training in 2025 to improve flexibility, mobility and agility recovering from a knee injury. Ballet has been used over the years by the NFL for functional benefits to enhance their on-field performance. If you went to a ballet, you would see the possible truth in that. For many years, Meredith’s picture became a marketing figure for their campaigns. He was a soloist for the Pennsylvania Ballet. There is an artist’s rendering of him on the side of a building at 13th and Locust Streets in Philly.
When we were moving into our new home on the campus of the Episcopal Academy, Meredith who is black, was asked by the movers what pro basketball team he played for.
The statue of Rocky has become a symbol for our city of perseverance for those who succeeded against all odds. During the summer of 2024 we went to see one of his works being performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington. I have attached Meredith’s bio so that you can see what a real life Rocky looks like albeit not in boxing. From humble beginnings he has become a dancer, a choreographer, teacher and ballet superstar.
But back to that idea of movement vocabulary. All our experiences form and shape how we see what is in front of us. It can mean what the choreographer was trying to say, but it also can mean what we see or want to see.
This is the reason that all of us are looking and watching and waiting to see the Epstein files. The victims are the most anxious to see justice, one of the pillars of ethics, done.
Earlier this year Bondi and Trump spoke about full disclosure. Bondi had the evidence on her desk. Bondi’s response was, she looked, and there is nothing there. Trump did the same saying that it was a Democrat hoax. Fast forward. The Republicans in Congress as well as the Democrats required transparency, most notably was Johnson joining with the Trump Administration in wanting this Epstein file halted for release.
What are you looking for in the files? Watch out for you may see something that will shock you. Already I have been shocked to see one of the great writers of ethics, morality, politics, and culture, David Brooks, being pictured having dinner with Epstein. It was point outed in a commentary that Brooks wouldn’t write about Epstein when everybody else was. His friends and colleagues couldn’t understand why he didn’t take up this topic when everybody else in the business of explaining cultural issues was writing about it. I don’t believe that Brooks was part of Epstein’s sexual circle, but there is that phenomenon of guilt by association.
I can’t imagine why there has been generated so much information about Epstein that have to be sifted through for redaction but clearly there is. Trump once said, “That he could shoot someone in the middle of street on 5th Avenue and nothing would happen to him”. He has escaped being a felon and rapist and the very embodiment of sedition. My question is, “Will he finally have to take responsibility for his actions?
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