Act, play, and dance your interpretation of Dickinson’s ballet-themed poem, with actor Cynthia Nixon, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, dancer Jill Johnson, and poet Marie Howe.
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by Emily Dickinson
I cannot dance opon my Toes –
No Man instructed me –
But oftentimes, among my mind
A Glee possesseth me
That had I Ballet – knowledge –
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe –
Or lay a Prima – mad –
And though I had no Gown of Gauze –
No Ringlet, to my Hair –
Nor hopped to Audiences – like Birds –
One Claw opon the Air –
Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls –
Nor rolled on Wheels of Snow
Till I was out of sight in sound –
The House encore me so –
Nor any know I know the Art
I mention easy – Here –
Nor any Placard boast me
It’s full as Opera –
Text from Franklin 381A
I cannot dance opon my Toes –
No Man instructed me –
But oftentimes, among my mind
A Glee possesseth me
That had I Ballet – knowledge –
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe –
Or lay a Prima – mad –
And though I had no Gown of Gauze –
No Ringlet, to my Hair –
Nor hopped to Audiences – like Birds –
One Claw opon the Air –
Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls –
Nor rolled on Wheels of Snow
Till I was out of sight in sound –
The House encore me so –
Nor any know I know the Art
I mention easy – Here –
Nor any Placard boast me
It’s full as Opera –
Text from Franklin 381A
THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: VARIORUM EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.
Actor
Cellist
Poet
Dancer
Emily Dickinson
Ballerina Fanny Elssler, courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University
Ronzani's Grand Ballet Troupe (1857), courtesy of the New York Public Library
