ABSTRACT
What can a museum invigilator and a figure skating athlete have in common in their activity’s time-space relation? Could it be the repetition, the sustention and the fall? If the first compresses time and space by means of “sliding” through the ice-ring and executing complex jumps that require challenging body techniques with full concentration and focus in the present; the latter “lives” an expanded territory by means of a profound time in near stillness. They will both fall when their minds fail to be present or, from another perspective, when the mind escapes the condition in which it is expected to be active. They occupy opposite sides of the spotlight: the athlete is present as an athlete and a dancer - embodying a character in the choreography; the invigilator, in turn, represents the institution through his presence in uniform. The human behind the character and the institution is present within “the fall.” The body is the terrain of the experience with its escapist desires and constraints. It is both object and subject of discipline and liberation, where resilience can occur through continual expansion and fall.
