?Interrobang! · Track 79 · middle

Which Dance Is Truly Yours

OBJECT (intimate, what Sisukiro found): the only evidence of a talent she keeps hidden. OWNER (re-linked by Sisukiro): Ballet Dancer Ben — haka performer from Aotearoa; note the irony of the name. FOUND AT: a deep jungle cave in Papua New Guinea. THE (UN)LIKELY STORY & THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION: Ben performs the fierce haka though ballet is his secret love; hid the evidence of his hidden talent in a jungle cave. Which dance is truly yours?

Lyrics

[Intro]
Found you in the dark.
Papua New Guinea.
Twenty degrees, and no wind ever.

[Verse 1]
Not a fossil.
Not a stone tool from a lost tribe.
A pair of slippers.
Leather worn to skin, ribbons the color of faded moths.
Left here in the smell of wet limestone and sleeping bats.
So far from the scent of rosin.
So far from a polished floor.

[Chorus]
One body for the haka, to shake the very ground of Aotearoa.
One body for the plié, to leave the ground behind.
They called you Ballet Dancer Ben.
A joke, or a secret name whispered in the mirror?
Which war cry?
Which fifth position?
Which dance is truly yours?

[Verse 2]
I see the pūkana in your eyes, the challenge that makes armies tremble.
The slap of bare feet on the earth, calling up the ancestors.
And then I see this...
The secret arch, the turned-out knee.
A barre made of a jungle vine.
Practicing your silence where no one could ever hear the floorboards creak.
Where the strength had to be quiet.

[Bridge]
Did you carry them all this way just to let them go?
To give the fierce man the final say?
Or was this a burial?
A quiet place to keep the softest part of you safe.
A dance no one could judge, hidden in the heart of the world, away from every eye that knew you.

[Outro]
The cave keeps its counsel.
The slippers don't speak.
Just the question, hanging in the damp, still air.