&, well, learning a choreography is a valuable exercise in learning a sequence of movements which is, after all, what we do in class every time. The choreography is just a bit longer, so it's good for me.

Catching up on films... 10 minutes older, the Claire Denis film really caught me. Simple: philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and a student on a train. She (student) describes her experience as an outsider, an intruder, arriving in France as a student from another country. Calmly, lucidly, he analyses and explains her feelings. In the corridor of the train is a black African. Back in the carriage the intimate, thoughtful conversation continues. Suddenly the door opens and the African enters and starts to talk to the professor and student. The shock of intrusion before we realise that he is actually with them.

Then the Goddard season continued. I watched Le Mepris years ago on a small b&w tv and remembered nothing very clearly. Seeing it widescreen on a good colour monitor is breathtaking. Godard working beyond full stretch. The central scene between Bardot and Piccoli an extraordinary 30 minutes. We sit and watch a relationship falling apart. Just how far writing combined with acting, directing, cinematography and editing can reach. Unforgettable: somewhere many of us must have been. He doesn't realise how seriously she needs to be taken and in the end she leaves in scorn, mepris. & I never realised how seriously Bardot should be taken as an actor. After this 30 minutes confined in a flat we are suddenly on location in the Mediterranean, endless space and harmony enhanced by that feeling of confinement within a small destructive circle. Stunning doesn't do it justice.

The back problem after the Tuesday class seems to have cleared up after a day of being rather sore. F cheered me up a lot by saying very encouraging things about my leading: that I never get her off-balance, never wrestle her with my left arm. She has the strong central balance that comes from 14 years doing pirouettes on the point of one toe.