By Gabrella Lorenz

Tollwood Final: After the Wilson flop the American dancer Maureen Fleming showed just how powerful art that is not spectacle can be.

The truly exciting occurs in silence. The physical art of Maureen Fleming breaks with all that one expects to see, and opens new spaces for thought. After the loud Wilson flop, her solo piece, "After Eros" at Tollwood was a truly sensational finale.

Maureen Fleming--she is firstly an attractive naked woman's body in a black space. But her body is a sculpture, which she re-forms every moment. With weightless grace and the imperturbable quiet and peace of a Japanese Zen master, she accomplishes slow-motion physical feats beyond our understanding. She seems sometimes to hold herself up on only big toe or pinkie. Her body becomes space--whether it is gliding down a stair with dancerly perfection or doubling into a Henry Moore figure over a plane of water.

Maureen Fleming was badly injured as a child in a car accident. She found her healing in the Japanese dance called Butoh. What she gained in art and dance forms have developed into corporeal spirituality. A body which defines space, the eloquent language of silence.