Blind, gutsy and gifted … Karin discovers life, love and independence through learning how to dance.
Promo for Can You Feel Me Dancing? [1986] starring Justine Bateman as Karin
Karin feels the rays against her eyes & sways,
two ticket stubs in her hand, invitations inside
her carry-bag. Larry arrives presently, guiding
the cup towards her face. Coke’s strong motion
against ice. Her brother’s hair is spiky to touch,
of course, echo of freeway traffic in his shaking
left hand. Just like his personality. He uses chop-
sticks to make beats when they order take-out.
Always watching that show – The Fall Guy – in
between his practice, driving Karin to work &
wishing he was blind. So would that help, if I was
blind, just like you Karin? She heard disbelief in
his Fall Guy voice when she said she wanted
to go to The movies? What the? You? I, no way!
Reaching over to touch her arm & say sorry,
expertly removing the Coke from her grasp.
The cinema’s cooling system hits Karin’s face
like a museum of the dark. The preview starts
but Larry’s talking about his band The Cathode
Rays & how he’s been giving it some thought
& has decided to leave home. Karin’s trying to
make it out, some kind of children’s movie, all
that Disney tinkling on the keys ... the cinema’s
roaring with subliminal advertising & though
it has no obvious effect on Karin, who is to
say what might happen when an image passes
through a person, as the blip-verts did. Their
hot velocities, yesterday evening, downtown.
The premiere this afternoon is for another of
Justine Bateman’s teen films. Karin lined up for
tickets all day outside the radio station offices,
on that wind-blown interstice of the new city.
Dancing makes you free. You’re in an invisible
machine, standing upright, & each movement of
your body bends space & time. For Karin, that
moment before lift-off comes like a swoon, or
a screen kiss at the end of a dance. She freezes
in mid-air like Superman before a blue screen,
or a magician’s assistant, supported by strings,
listening for the end of each scene. A minimum
of crowd noise, just the tube’s silver surf. The
way it was that afternoon at home when she sat
& listened all the way through it. That silence
just before the evening news began, that high
& lonely message, the dead air calling home.
That cessation, at some core aural level, of her
mother’s progress across the lounge’s lino floor,
stunned by a headline. The moment between
dancing & love-making, then, amounts only to
a way of saying the same words, singing the
same tunes. She & Richie dance near the bar,
her feet on top of his white dancer’s shoes.
Now, the moment the movie begins, Larry’s
talking about his mobile phone & how when
he types in movies it mistakes it for mother &
Karin wonders if he even knows the movie’s
started & that this is how it feels to fall in love.
The moment after that moment between,
when people become lovers in lanes or catch
commuter buses. That musky hum, of things
we know of that are yet to happen. Advertorial
dreams, or the snicker of a game-show hostess
off-camera. Heaters the crew might have trained
on the site of their screen love’s consummation,
a warmth that she alone could not provide, not
in a sex scene, & certainly not with him. & so, in
the cinema toilet cubicle, Karin sits listening as
two girls discuss Justine Bateman’s after-party
outfit, her uniform for the obligatory autograph
sessions. Parting with her invitation at the door,
Karin’s hit by a whirl of silk scarves & hears the
voice of Karin & Larry’s introducing her as his
sister & saying how she’s blind & how she likes
that other movie she was in & Justine Bateman’s
going Hi Karin then Oh then Oh, I see & Karin’s
standing there shaking, going No. No you don’t.
Across the street the last supermarket's already
closed but Karin’s out in the middle of the road,
sensing both the kerb & the figure she guesses is
still Justine & she’s trying to say that even though
the end is coming soon, more than TV, more than
cinema even, how she wants the movies to come
to her in her radio-play dreams & then Justine’s
leaving, the taxi’s arrived & she hasn’t even said
goodbye & when the soundtrack cuts out it’s cold
& Karin recalls that she never did learn to dance,
despite his encouragement & now it’s snowing in
Los Angeles & she’s the only one here who knows.
First published by The Red Room as part of its Poetry Picture Show project.
