Letter to the Editor: Message from Steve (Paxton) about Bob (Ashley)

Thank you, Megan. I gather your “Dust” is still accumulating, and I wish you all the best with it. Ashley had the odd talent of remaining still as his music and text swirled. It was excellent to dance to “Private Parts” for 30 years. It is a woven story of delicious language, but when I hear it now, I recognize its flavor. Not mood or musicality or prosidy or poetry or orchestration or structure, but something fundamental and immediate and only his. A crankiness developed for the entertainment of those of us who can appreciate crankiness. I think you caught him well in this appreciation, especially the use of the woman’s thoughts with which you end. The final innocuous question morphs into the fundamental question with his departure, and so his texts worked; his voice was the most casual drawl of current philosophers/mystics/sages. Whatever. — Steve Paxton