About 8 years ago in my personal timeline (about 4 years from now on Earth) a bunch of us from the lab went to see Tanzen Spiegel perform at the Spaßwerk Theater. They were a very popular troop doing a sold out show, and we quickly found out why. Their first dance was an absolutely hilarious pantomime of sexual selection gone wrong. The second piece was about E3 polymerase synthesis which I didn't get although the biochemists were all enthralled. It looked really nice though. The bit after the break I forget, but their last piece was spectacular -- an absolute tour de force of the history of life on Earth. A couple of glitches in the science but easily forgivable. Even the non-biologists gave them a long standing ovation.
Part rythmist, part contortionist, they would bend themselves into crazy shapes, and multiple dancers would link together to act out the motions of their fanciful creatures. They wore leotards that would change colors to make them meld, and flash patterns to interpret the story. In particular during the dance about runaway sexual selection, red barcode patterns on the flanks of the creatures (each made of two dancers -- one the body and the other the absurd antlers) would cleverly change to indicate each new generation.
I mention them because they remind me of the DAF of Sigma 957. At first it was the red barcode; they are like the red marks on the flanks of the males. But the more I thought about it these creatures appear as if they might be contorted dancers -- otherwise graceful humans twisting themselves into strange forms. Their heads droop below raised shoulders, their bent bodies rest on legs with too many joints and angles. They look like if they stood up straight they would tower over normal humans, rather than the tallest of them coming only to my chin.
But most of all they move like dancers. Each footfall seems carefully planned, like a step in a complex coreography. Even the most confident and comfortable person makes a misstep, plods or stumbles, or simply appears uncouth and uncoached. They never do, at least to my eye. They seem to have all practiced somewhere away from my prying cameras so that when they are on stage they are flawless in their execution. They are natural dancers who, through their constant and unforced grace, act as mirror for humans of our own awkward, uncomfortable, confused existence.
These are the reasons I have made my choice. This species are to be called Tanzen -- The Dancers.
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