THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS
AIRDATE: January 09, 2004
Eighteen months ago, Gina Angelique had
a baby. The wildly imaginative choreographer and founder of Eveoke Dance
Theatre thought a lot about motherhood and its particular joys and
obligations.. So last year, when 65% of the population said they were in favor
of sending their daughters and sons off to war, she just couldn't understand
it. And that got her thinking about parents who suffer the death of a child
involuntarily -- through illness, accident or suicide. The result of all this
rumination -- and numerous interviews -- is "Mothers," a forceful,
passionate dance theater piece that is jaw-dropping, thought-provoking and gut-wrenching.
The evening starts on a light,
whimsical note -- an often-humorous exploration of the many stereotypes of
motherhood: cook, cleaner, nurturer, childbearer, party planner, hostess, Super
Woman, multi-tasker, and overstressed caregiver to all. Sometimes, these women
wear charmingly fake smiles as they slog through the drudgery of their day,
pulled at and dragged down, chased after and demanded of. Sometimes, as in a
wonderfully sensuous video of Angelique, only their hands show the stress. Sometimes,
as in a lovely solo by Nikki Dunnan, only the back. The à propos props, the
creative employment of which is an Angelique trademark -- in this case,
spatulas, whisks, sacks of flour -- are put to incredibly imaginative uses. The
visual imagery and stage pictures are gorgeous.
Once Angelique begins to explore the darker side of her theme,
which is only hinted at earlier on, the evening becomes very intense. She looks
at mothers plagued by demons, anguished and paroxysmal. In "Ash,"
with beautiful music composed by Bridget Brigitte in honor of her mother,
Marianne McDonald, Butoh artist Charlene Penner pours flour onto the floor in a
long, straight line, as Angelique's voiceover recounts her maternal dream
asking, "Which mother will lose her child tonight?" At each
performance, Penner picks a different dancer to answer that question with a
touching and tragic solo; on opening night, it was the marvelous Araceli
Carrera. This potent segment is followed by "Hell" and "Field of
Wounded Mothers," one a nightmarish vision of bodies intertwined, the
other a moaning, writhing communal and individual wail of despair, a symphony
of damning, praying, bargaining and grieving. The splendid dancers thrash
themselves into impossible positions. They cry out and collapse. And then, in
one dreamy instant, Penner as the ashen child approaches one mother, and is
picked up and held in a heartbreaking fantasy freeze. The end of the piece was
followed by a palpable, cathartic, breath-stealing silence before the audience
burst into applause. Even the dancers were visibly moved. Some of these images
were agonizing to watch, and some will not be soon forgotten. But Angelique,
ever the activist, puts them out there in the hope that they will be turned to
social good.
©2004 Patté
Productions Inc.