NADINE ZANOW: A Dance in Time, part 1, 2024

"scattered like silver dust, the winds carried their words..."

Sifting through stacks of pictures and albums found in the attic of my grandparents’ home in Bulgaria, I found a black and white photo of a dance and people meeting in a village square. It was no larger than 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) and the image was not in focus. This photo was a blurred witness to a place I had never been to, nor could I imagine my relatives ever being there.

Despite the range of questions popping up in my head about this strange photo, it didn’t feel that odd… meaning, it was unusual for it to be found in a box of old photos in my family’s attic, but not unusual because I had a sense I could have happened upon such an event in a village square in some remote corner of a country, not necessarily present as a tourist, but as a guest or a wanderer or as a spectator. Perhaps you would have felt the same. You sort of know it. You recognize it, the sense of the scene. Perhaps you hear the music, but you don’t know anything of it at all.

I began working through various ideas about the dance. Perhaps it is the same dream and movement performed many times by those who may never meet. Everything is in motion. Nature makes her music. There's something in the air.

"we go back a long time"	"the natural order of things..."
"with the summons of another night, the sound of many feet..."	"others had taken our places...""
"that very morning, there were many more than one...""	"something like a vision, that last light of day...""

"they make us hear them, during the missing hours..."

In these works on paper, I am not trying to paint the dance itself, but rather the feeling around such a happening… I like the interaction of the dance, the village, families and the entrance of new characters and narratives.

Snatches of thoughts:

The sound of many feet

A community, drawing together.

Brothers Grimm's fairy tale of the twelve dancing princesses and their nightly disappearances.

Line dances of Eastern Europe

One world touches another world

Dances…. For the hunt, for religious purposes, for rituals, for protection, for mating or attracting a partner, rites of passage, for the departed

A place and time to join together in a dream

A human connection

"we can make a dream about you..."

"it was a most strange procession..."	"echoes of a forgotten age..."
"firedancers"	"they move, according to the vision...""
"we speak our names, one by one...""	"they kept us waiting, many years before...""