The Remembered Steps

The video starts with a woman in a wheelchair, her headphones covering her silver hair, her eyes closed. When the music by Tchaikovsky starts playing, her arms move: slowly, majestically, in an arc overhead, forming the port de bras, a ballet position that every student knows by heart. Her face, which was vacant a second ago, narrows with some emotion that resembles recognition. This is Marta C. González Saldaña, an elderly woman living in a care home in Valencia, Spain. Her video, which has been viewed millions of times, has been shared by the stars and the grieving, the influential and the unknown- all united by the idea that music can unlock a memory that has been buried too deep for words.

This notion is actually correct. Musical and procedural memories are stored in parts of the brain that are often spared during the onset of Alzheimer’s. That is why songs that have been ingrained in the memory from early childhood or dance moves practiced for hours on end can be among the last remaining cognitive functions in people with dementia. Researchers have long suspected that music and movement therapy could be beneficial for patients, and there is a scientific basis for this hypothesis.

Less clear is the issue of González’s biography, as dance critic Alastair Macaulay, former chief dance critic for the New York Times and a writer for the website of the American Ballet Theater, discovered while investigating the matter. He found hardly any trace of a prima ballerina who could have starred in the NYCB or the Russian Imperial Ballet, as the caption suggested. In fact, not even the existence of the ballet company "Ballet de las Américas," could be confirmed. More importantly, the woman in the film who looks so sad and recognizable as González is not actually her. This is Uliana Lopatkina, a Mariinsky Ballet soloist, dancing a different piece.

Nothing stops the woman from being a remarkable discoverer. The video evidence, which has gone viral, shows that she reacted to the music just as one would expect from a former ballerina. What was invented was the biographical context, which could have been much more significant.

So what is the problem with a bit of fiction woven into the story? Perhaps the fact that a real and beautiful miracle has failed to receive the attention it deserves because it has been overshadowed by the fabricated history of the prima ballerina? Perhaps the fact that, in order to become a truly viral star, the woman needed a new biography, which she did not have? The scientific discovery behind the video is no less impressive, and much more honest.