Only ten persons are allowed on the gleaming <br />dance-floor at a time, though thousands may <br />crowd edges of the rectangle and loom in galleries. <br />Also, two or three jesters dresssed in stripes <br />may intermingle, interrupt, blow whistles, <br />and make humorous gestures. The ten dancers <br />* <br />improvise in clothes not dissimilar to underwear. <br />The ritual expresses a bifurcated attitude toward <br />a brown sphere. One person for instance may <br />desire the sphere so much as to reach, jump, dive, <br />beg, or flail for it; may hold it close, even dance <br />with it. An instant later, the same person may <br />cast the sphere away as if it were accursed or <br />diseased. Clearly, the drama partly concerns love, <br />possession, covetousness, fear, and fickleness. <br />* <br />There are two symbolic window-panes, with <br />hoops and nets attached to them, at either <br />end of the rectangle. These installations <br />are supplemented by line-drawings on <br />the dance-floor. It is all art: set-decoration, <br />of interest but not crucial. Often the brown <br />sphere falls through those hoops and nets, <br />and such an accident seems to affect the crowd. <br />* <br />The whole activity seems to be a privileged, <br />ceremonial performance much obsessed with <br />height and time. Indeed, a clock looms <br />high above the dancers, well out of reach; <br />a sense of haste often pervades the dance.<br /><br />Hans Ostrom<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/basketball-16/
