I went to a performance tonight that I didn't intend to write about, but as I was watching it, I felt the urge to express a thing or two. This isn't so much a review as a response and thoughts provoked by a performance.
I should state up front that I've known jhon stronks and his work for several years. This is me talking about a friend and his work.
jhon r. stronks|there in the sunlight is mostly jhon and whoever he's dancing with at the moment. Tonight it was Nicole McNeil, and they've developed some fine chemistry together. They are playful and tender and blunt with one another---so much fun to watch. Fun and emotional.
But the thoughts provoked tonight has to do with jhon's use of gender conventions.
He has a recurring character/alter-ego/presence called Miss Understood. She appears in high heels, dress, and a beauty pageant sash with her name on it. But this isn't drag. It's a man in a dress and heels. There's no attempt to be a woman, but an expression of feminine conventions. The dress is cut low enough to reveal some chest hair. There is stubble on his chin. His legs are not shaved. There is no attempt to hide or obscure masculine conventions. And yet, above I found myself referring, instinctively, to Miss Understood as "she."
It comes off as neither put-on nor put-down. This isn't making fun of gender, it's expressing humanity across lines and categories. It's done with so much comfort and ease that there's no doubt that we're seeing jhon/Miss Understood---or at least some parts of him/her---however performative the expression. This is performance as present-moment-choices as opposed to performance as artifice.
That Nicole dances with him and expresses femininity throughout---she does not put on traditionally men's clothing, for example---says something about comfort in her own person. I think. It's hard to know what artistic choices are made by who, but knowing jhon, I suspect he would only have put her in a suit and tie if she's wanted to be in one.
In short, both felt authentic in their particular gender expressions.
I wish I had something profound to say about all this, but I wanted to note it.
* * * * *
I said this wasn't a review and I'm sticking to it, but since I'm writing I should be a good host and mention the guests to Houston who were in the show. Muscle Memory Dance Theatre. This company came down I-45 to share their work with a Houston audience, and I for one am grateful to have seen them. It's a lovely company. If I were in Dallas, I would make a point of seeing more of their work. Perhaps they'll make the drive down I-45 again sometime.
I do want to note one piece, however, a solo choreographed and performed by Brandy M. Niccolai. It entitled "Torment in White." The dance was more subtle than the title might expect, although there some torturous moments of Brandy throwing herself to the floor repeatedly. In between moments like that were graceful moves that juxtaposed nicely against the more overtly torturous.
What I found particularly captivating was the costume by Jeanne S Mam-Luft. A white, back-less, party dress with layered skirts also had leather belts---I presume men's belts---threaded though the waist-line so that the buckle ends hung down on the outside of the skirt, the notched ends hanging down on the inside of the skirt. During floor work, the buckles made thudding noises on the floor.
I found the image unsettling. Perhaps because I was already thinking about gender, and because violence against women has been a topic of discussion in social media of late, it felt like an image of menace, ever present to this woman.
I may be reading more into it than was there, but in a brief conversation after the show, Brandy confirmed that it was an image intended to be unsettling. She seemed pleased that I was unsettled.
If Muscle Memory comes down this way again, I hope they bring this piece again. It warrants a second look.
* * * * *
All
of a sudden! An impromptu pop up evening of dance and performance with
Muscle Memory Dance Theatre and "there ... in the sunlight."
Contemporary Dance
June 21, 2014
The Barn
Houston, Texas
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