The Artist and the Dancer (Dedicated to the American movement artist, Gary Welton) Alone, beneath a spotlight centre-left of an empty stage, she dances to the music for an audience in her mind; whilst, in the shadows of the wings, a benign voyeur, possessed, captures her flowing movements in a brush-stroked pas-de-deux. Each allonge and pirouette keeps the artist in his trance, as he renders to acrylic complex rhythms of her dance; until at last she falls exhausted, and his pallet’s work is done; to remain undisturbed upon an easel for several years to come. Decades later: a champagne reception for a gallery’s opening night where, from the shadows, an old man gazes as a graceful lady stands and sighs alone, beneath a spotlight, at a figure centre-left of a canvas stage, where she now dances for an audience with music in their minds. © Copyright 2017 Robert M Jaggs-Fowler