Dances About Who We Are
A performance that mines the physical and emotional spaces of work, power and love.
Wild type is a scientific term that defines “normal” from a genetic point of view, and how a consistent “abnormality” can become a new normal. Taking inspiration from the idea of norms and individuations, some of Boston’s best choreographers (and one New York guest) present works that reflect everyday internal and external challenges, pressures of work and home, and the struggle between blending in and being erased out.
Jenna Pollack’s World Premiere WORK explores what we do and whom we become in our places of business. Commissioned to work with a soundtrack by minimalist composer Steve Reich, the piece is about the conflict between the relentless momentum of the work we must due to survive vs inertia of what we would like to due to thrive as an individual.
Junichi Fukuda’s premiere DISMELL – named for the biological reaction to an unpleasant smell – reflects the frustrations and disappointments of inequality of power, and being labelled as “other” because of race, sexuality, philosophy, or newness in an established community. Fukuda’s second piece, YOU ARE NOT YOURS (2017), is also a meditation on power, built on an alternating spoken-word and music soundtrack and featuring two dancers — one an aloof, enigmatic presence who seemingly changes genders; and another who moves when manipulated by the other, then independently. Fukuda says the piece comments on contradictions in a hierarchical society.
Joy Davis’s BODIES OF (2017) is a comedic work for two dancers inspired by the power of physics — the physics with which we move through the world, and the quantum physics of billions of particles that move through us all the time.
Adam Barruch’s 2012 work, FOLIE A DEUX (“a madness shared by two”), takes an intimate, intense look at a personal relationship. It explores a couple’s tumultuous life with love and power struggles playing out through alternately tender and frenetic movement. His work has been performed at Boston Conservatory, but with this performance, Barruch and his company Anatomiae Occultii make their Boston debut.
WILD TYPE: Dances About Who We Are runs for three performances (Fri., Nov. 2 at 8 PM, and Sat., Nov. 3 at 2 PM and 8 PM, 2018) at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theater, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, on. Tickets are $40, and are available at www.bostontheatrescene.com, by phone at 617-933-8600. Student, senior and other community discounts are available.
“She is riveting, someone who commands the space, is enviably articulate (physically and verbally) and can entrance her audience with a grand, elastic extension or the subtle raising of an eyebrow.”