Like the Sea

Carol Mavor is Professor Emeritus of Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Manchester. Her books include Serendipity: The Afterlife of the Object (Reaktion Books, 2024) and Like a Lake: A Story of Uneasy Love and Photography (Fordham University Press, 2020).

Preface xiii I Like Mary Glass 1 Dance Is Our First Art Form 2 Under a Nearly Cloudless Sky 4 A Caul Should Be Kept for Life 9 The Defeated Owl Spirit 12 Lake Tahoe Never Blinks 13 Alone in the Shell 15 Taking Three Hundred Years to Grow into an Oak Tree 19 A Desire to Steal 21 Like Anything That Feels Really, Really Good 25 Until They Are Lost 28 The Pacific Is Made of the Blues of Mary's Dream of a Glass House 34 Like the Jellyfish That Wash Up on the Beach That She Sometimes Accidentally Steps On 35 Fairytale Modernism 38 Appetite 43 We've Danced with Ruth and Merce on Anna's Redwood Deck 44 At Last, They Come Out-Explosively but Gently 45 Heart Beating under Bark 50 Mary Does Not Love Aaron 54 I Could See That They Were Running and Skipping and To Me It Was Dancing 56 Her Voice Is Voluptuous, Almost Masculine 58 Even Though She Is a Vegetarian 62 My Excited Pupils Enlarged?/?M. XXX 64 The Secret That Was Melody's Alone 67 In You 69 Honey from Mr. Larkin's Bees 70 Like the Noses of Rabbits 71 The Stars Are Aligned 72 Eyes Washed in Tears 73 Girlfriends Who Traveled to the Other Side 75 Mary Cannot Imagine That It Is Anything Serious 80 Imagination Is a Killer 82 The Nature of Grief 84 The Same Thing 85 Mary's Companion Lover 88 He Will Lose Nico 89 Into Her Skirt Pocket 90 To Wait Is to Love 92 Like a Drug in Eliza's Veins 94 Pulled Out by Coda's Hot Light 99 To Eat Is to Steal 101 To Love Is to Wait 104 Dance That Is All 105 Time to Dance 106 A Scale Model of Vietnam 108 To Nourish 109 The Halprins Are Friends of Godunova 110 And No Birds Sing 111 A Big Newfoundland Dog Named Carlo 112 Mother of Black Dance 114 Big, Drooling, Shedding Beast 115 The Same Deep Thought 117 The Knitting Is So Tender 120 Down Haight Street 121 No Strings 122 Yucatecos Like Me Speak Maya 127 Visible Stars, Even When the Sun Is Up 132 Something Begins 133 Mary Sees a Baby's Face in the Waves 136 Curved as a Dolphin Bone Held in the Sea 138 Eliza Says Her Sorrow Is So Great That the Mountains Changed Places and Began to Leak Milk 139 Ocean's Time 141 Blood Everywhere 144 Nothing Inside of Mary 145 No Song 146 Is This What You Wanted? 147 That Dark Involvement with Blood and Birth and Death 148 That White Feather Floating on Top of the Sea 149 What Happened? 150 Would Something Else Have Happened? 153 Until It Dissolves in One's Mouth 154 The Heart Is a Safe Place?/?Especially if It Belongs to a Beloved Sister 156 As She Fingers the Breath Holes of the Abalone Shell Again 160 And Someone Turned the Moon Off 162 To Disappear 163 Like the Sea 164 Afterwor(l)d 167 Acknowledgments 173 Illustration Credits 175 Notes 179

"It's tempting to say that I 'inhaled' Like the Sea, except that metaphor seems wrong regarding a work that's so fluid, so amniotic. And while there's been ample documentation of the lives and work of some of the most significant figures in postmodern dance, this 'biography' expands the possibilities for exploring the ways in which an aesthetic practice is grounded in both political and personal histories. Mavor's Mary Glass is an uncannily convincing participant in this sphere, and the places where her life and those of 'real people' intersect are both illuminating and enthralling." - Barbara Browning, author of The Gift.