Plate Number 199. Curtesying, a fan in right hand 1887

Curator: Immediately, it strikes me as a ghostly dance. These repeated figures...are they fading or emerging? Editor: I understand that impulse! What we are looking at is Eadweard Muybridge's "Plate Number 199. Curtesying, a fan in right hand" from 1887, a gelatin-silver print study of human locomotion. Curator: Locomotion. Such an understated title for what feels like a ballet of transience. A woman frozen, yet flowing. Look at the fan—almost vibrating with captured movement! Editor: Right! Each frame meticulously captures a stage of the curtsy, almost as if to deconstruct and examine the building blocks of a polite gesture, to strip off of its mystery. It almost reminds of medical study, something dehumanizing but deeply interesting. Curator: Yes, like examining the gears of a social mechanism! But to me, it evokes more than that. It touches upon the symbolism of ritual. The bow, the bend, it all suggests a dialogue with something greater, lost somewhere between intention and action. It all seems deeply coded with meaning! Editor: Fascinating perspective. And considering his other works studying people and animals in motion, do you see any ties there? Do the repeated human action link our idea of what animals feel like to ours? Curator: An interesting point! The cultural impulse to order, to analyze. To me, it represents something beyond mere taxonomy. The fan here is central to my analysis, as if its repetitive nature reveals a language beyond just utility! Is it only to provide air? Or to add mystique and hide expression? Is it perhaps the representation of the fleeting human essence? Editor: Well, there is only one way to find out. I guess it's time to start doing some curtseying in front of my bathroom mirror. But until then, this investigation of gesture has given me a lot to think about, especially what we carry when we perform. Curator: Absolutely, something so basic but at the same time full of nuances, mystery, history, and cultural expression, frozen and at our disposal. A lovely exploration, indeed.