Abstract
The body is truly amazing; how each cell lives and functions; how it comes together as a whole and becomes habitable. This sense of wonder that each person must feel at some point in their lives as they watch a wound heal and feel their heart race can sometimes be lost in medical training as the Krebs cycle is recited and forgotten for the umpteenth time.
The challenge to stay amazed and to see the beauty in those endless histology slides was in some way answered for me by a production called MUST by the Clod ensemble and Peggy Shaw at the Wellcome Institute.
In a dark room, a person of ambiguous gender is in the spotlight, dressed in a suit with a voice that is neither deep nor high. The poetry of life lived in a body is delivered at a steady tempo, in a clear tone. A history that we try and discover by studying diligently, by good communication, by looking for signs and by investigating thoroughly.
Peggy Shaw tells us in beautifully evocative prose what it is like to live in her body through love and trauma, childbirth and age. ‘My daughter was ready to touch down on the planet, but she had to climb up and out of my womb cause they had me tipping backwards, my feet in cold stirrups. (That was thirty eight years ago before they discovered the law of gravity applied to women).’
It is not easy to concentrate on a sole performer for 1 hour but there were bits of magic scattered throughout, leaving everybody in the audience with something to reflect on.
On the relationship with her doctor, Peggy Shaw said ‘I cannot lie down to be examined: it makes me feel like I will die’. The nonchalance with which I myself tell patients to undress as another ten-minute consultation rushes by may well be replaced by a little consideration.
And to end, a projection of histology slides on to her naked back. Sections of the cerebellum, intestine and striated muscle all stained in familiar colours creating works of beauty as the body was exposed from the inside out. We could all do with a bit of poetry and wonder in our lives.
The Clod ensemble gives training as part of the Performing Medicine project to students from St Bartholomew's Medical School. The Wellcome Collection organizes events throughout the year examining the relationship between art and medicine www.wellcomecollection.org.