Word: floe
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Just after 10 a.m., with no warning, not even the groan of the floe's straining under the combined pressure of wind and current, the ice pack begins to separate from the shore and starts drifting out into the lake. The movement is almost imperceptible. A few fishermen notice that their lines are no longer hanging vertically, but most assume that is due to currents under the ice pack...
Minutes pass before the alarm is raised. By then the floe has become an immense island ten miles long and five miles wide. Already more than 100 yds. of dark water separate it from Ohio. The ice fishermen know it may soon begin to break up. Some make for the shoreward side, in hopes that small boats manned by local fire brigade volunteers will find them. When rescue boats finally do crunch up to the ice and begin taking people aboard a captain has to explain, "We came to rescue you, not your stuff." As they are ferried to shore...
...sustain each other. They walk slowly to gether, they caress, at one point they push at each other as if the energy might connect them. But he withdraws, becomes frantic or engulfed in icy loneliness (all too heavily underscored by a set that looks like an ice floe along which curtains have somehow been hung). In the end he walks slowly into a void. She is left, head bowed, her hand cupping her chin. Both dancers give bold performances. One expects Von Aroldingen to be Balanchine's perfectly tuned instrument. Lüders, an elusive and sometimes awkward presence...