Unfuckingglaublicht!

Last night we saw Shadowman, Part II, choreographed by Sara Michelson, in what may once have been the cafeteria of P.S. 122 (which now means "Performance Space" rather than "Public School" 122) on 1st Avenue and 9th St. (we're talking East Village, for you foreigners from the US mainland). Three elegant young women, two rather clumsy guys, and two girls too young to be up that late on a pre-school night, gyrating in every visible part of the odd space, including, at one point, the fire escape visible through the windows. It was nice, but strange. Various among them kept muttering, mostly in German "Achtung, bitte!" one of the guys kept saying, very softly, and he also repeated numbers: "Ein hundert Kinder, ein tausend Tänzerin, vier tausend Schauspieler!" Perhaps all those children, dancers and actors were phantasmal accompanists. "Unglaublicht," said one of the women as she collapsed, most gracefully but suddenly, at my feet (we were in the very front row). Then she did it again, and again, and grew more emphatic: "Unfuckingglaublicht!" Well, she was right about that. But whether you glauben or not, the ceremony had mysterious beauty. The mystery was just what sort of god, or goddess, they were devoted to. The ecstasy may have been fake, but it was convincing. Then the little girls (with the most elaborate hairdos) passed out cheese and crackers, and then little cups of wine, to us in the audience. You know, because of their concentration on something unseen, and that men and women were dancing at the same time, and that they included us in their refreshments, I think they must have been Bektashis, Manhattan version. (To find out more about Bektashis, if you don't already know, read my novel, A Gift for the Sultan. I know, I need to get it published first, but if you can't wait, write & I'll tell you about it.)