New York Bodies - Nov/Dec- 1991
"Head in the Clouds"

Andrea Shapiro

As an 18 year old member of the Rumanian State Ballet, Juliu Horvath's ideal of dance was to spin perpetually and, hoping to achieve this, he set out to build a pirouette machine. "I thought if I placed a drill in the earth, fixed a platform on it and got someone to crank it for me, I could turn and turn, but I kept falling off," says Horvath, who is now 49 and relatively more grounded. "Still, the idea has persisted ever since."

While Horvath never mastered the means of mechanically twirling like a top, his passion for going in circles eventually spun off into a practical idea about two decades later. "I found two ball bearing plates from old swivel chairs in trash on the street, brought them back to my studio and immediately saw six exercises so clearly-and that was how the Gyrotonic Expansion System was born," he explains. In 1982 he opened White Cloud Studio in New York. Since then, the system has won followers worldwide at affiliated studios in Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa Munich Lae Hague and Florence.

The Gyrotonic Expansion system is a patented design that uses hand and foot-operated wheel bases and pulley suspensions to precisely hone the body through some 130 variations on 50 different sets of exercises. The movements are largely circular and while the system was originally conceived for dancers, it has proven equally successful with children, the elderly and those recovering from injuries or serious illness. The system is said to provide strength without excess bulk, to cultivate flexibility and alignment, and promote neuro-muscular coordination, cardio-vascular stimulation and internal regeneration.

White Cloud is less stratospheric than its name suggests. The 1,800 square foot loft on 212 West 29th Street is divided into two rooms, one a yoga studio and the other which is crowded with six machines that appear to be jerry-built from salvagedjunk.
On one, a dancer lies with her feet suspended by leather straps which move her legs in broad arcs; on another a bike messenger undulates his torso back and forth while turning horizontal wheels with his hands; and on a third, an airline executive hangs from the top rung of an old ladder. Everywhere arms and legs are in circular motion-a sight which calls to mind Leonardo da Vinci's familiar illustration of the proportions of the human figure.

This is not a pump-em-up, push-emout, lunch break spa. At White Cloud, where a workout routinely lasts between one and two hours, the instructors don't speak like exercise physiologists. In place of the proverbial slow burns, there are slow turns synchronized with deep breaths, rhythmically released by people who seem to be in near ecstasy as they cling to machines which look almost sinister.

White Cloud mastermind Juliu Horvath now lives in New York but retains a dense Eastern European accent. Darkly bearded, his thinning hair tied back in a pony tail, Horvath cuts a figure somewhere between a wizard and an aging hippie. It comes as no surprise to hear him report how he arrived at White Cloud's name: "Clouds go wherever nature dictates and I feel I've been listening to that kind of a call."
Having been a swimmer as a child, a gymnast as an adolescent and a professional dancer in Rumania until he defected in 1970, Horvath's system combines essentials from all of these endeavors but draws chiefly from yoga, the discipline to which he became devoted as soon as he got to America.

Horvath's partner both in and out of business, Hilary Cartwright, is a tall, wispy woman with enviably correct posture and skin that appears to have never seen sun. While she possesses the paradoxical strength of a ballerina able to bend but not break, this appearance is deceiving. A former soloist with the Royal Ballet, Cartwright's career was aborted when she slipped on ice and injured her back. Prompted to seek other methods of keeping her body active, she moved to New York and, in 1982, contacted Horvath when she heard he had a system which might interest her because he was an ex-dancer.

Cartwright originally had an aversion to machines but became a disciple of Horvath's system when it proved to be crucial in the rehabilitation of her back injury. Now, with her strength restored, she actively practices and teaches yoga at White Cloud and the Alvin Ailey School.

Inner rhythms are key to the White Cloud experience, particularly those that send a body reeling round and round. While the fascination with turning has precedents in the mystical traditions of the Sufis and Dervishes, Horvath feels spinning may just be one of those things human beings like to do in response to the"torrent of energy that moves in circles within us."

Currently, about 5% of White Cloud's clients are over the age of 50, suffering from arthritis, recovering from cancer operations, or rehabilitating injuries. According to one studio instructor, "The older people are among the most inspiring in terms of improvement in their quality of life."

Within the past year or so, Juliu has passed on to Hilary the mantle of White Cloud's classes and other studio concerns in order to pursue his main interest, crafting bases for the machines. The platforms are carved in the Santa Cruz style of wavy red and blond woodwork and "patterned after the g shapes of swirling bonsai trees," he explains. While this feature has no bearing on engineering, Horvath insists it is important because "everything in people is revolving around beautifulness."
There is no escaping the unconventional look and feel of an exercise system that grew out of one man's attempt to make a pirouette machine and capture the thrill of revolving in space. This is a system that forfeits speed for pure pleasure and beauty, and, as a result, clients frequently praise the studio for its "nice spiritual energy." But Christina Johnson, the celebrated principal with the Dance Theater of Harlem, expresses it best. "In dance it's more about 'the picture,' but this system incorporates the inner life and the outer life-the space around you." she says. "After a while certain freedoms arise and I find that just walking down the street is different than when I came here six years ago."

Andrea Shapiro (1991)