Works and Process on falling in love, with etoiles from Paris Opera Ballet
http://www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/blog/ballet/emotion-motion-disconnected/800/
The Guggenheim Works & Process Emotion & Motion program on Feb 14 & 15 featured two top-ranking dancers (étoiles) from the Paris Opera Ballet—Clairemarie Osta and Mathieu Ganio—performing three ballet excerpts, plus the speaker Dr. Helen Fisher. Works & Process events usually trace a theme elucidated in dance performance excerpts, or preview an upcoming performance, or the work of one or more choreographers. This program, timed for Valentine’s Day, oddly felt more like a variety show than a unified presentation, with unrelated dance segments breaking up blocks of Dr. Fisher’s more conventional, if interesting, lecture.
Dr. Fisher is a biological anthropologist who has studied the brains of people in love, as well as analyzed data from huge numbers of participants on match.com. She presented her findings—including ideas like romantic love can be chemically similar to addiction, and that humans are almost uniquely monogamous among mammals—peppered with quotations about love from famed historical writers and philosophers. Her style ranged from scholarly to frank best friend handling subject matter innately appealing to pretty much everyone, looking from the inside or outside.
