Robe undone
In NDT’s anniversary publication NDT | 60, Bustinduy looks back on her very first performance as a NDT dancer in 1999: “[…]There was no performance at all, just a genuine unexpected experience, like falling into a dream where there is no reasoning. My body was working as expected but my mind was out of control. Sailing between two currents, the conscious and the subconscious. Apparently my partner and I gave a very good performance. I could not be sure, for as long as it lasted I had travelled somewhere far. When the curtain went down, we were very much thanked by the audience with a great applause. We bowed and I went quickly to take the hand of the choreographer to invite him to bow too. In the moment I returned, I slipped, fell down and my robe opened. There I was, sitting on the floor, with an open robe and exposed breasts in front of a thousand people. At the time, I was so embarrassed, I could not look at Gerald Tibbs nor Jirí Kylián’s eyes when they greeted me in the wings. I just wanted to disappear.
With time I understood that the real magic of our profession is exactly that, the fragility of things. The fact that nothing lasts. Everything can crumble in seconds. Every moment is our last because it can never be repeated as it once was. Every performance, no matter how many times performed, is indeed unique. Twenty years later I still cherish that moment.”
