The incredibly raw show I AM’: Now h e r e, put on this past weekend by the 2013 MFA artists, delivered flesh and poetry to audience members.
The fifth Master of Fine Arts in Contemporary Choreography and Dance Dramaturgy fall production showcased eight solo artists, who used their own lives and personal bodies as sources of history, wisdom, and knowledge to explore their identities.
Professor Darcey Callison, director of the graduate program in contemporary choreography and dance dramaturgy, explains, “In Now h e r e, the dance artists are presenting the outcomes of their own bodies’ memories: their cultures, identities, and technologies, their wishes, dreams, and potential, their fears, and their personal power…Scholar Harvie Ferguson wrote that ‘all history is the history of the body.’ These choreographers are interpreting the histories of their bodies for the stage.”
From beginning to end, the audience was invited to delve into the many diverse perspectives provided by each soloist, diverse in cultural perspectives, dance style, and use of technology in association with each piece.
The audience was taken on a trip, starting from the inner psyche of one’s mind in “Drag” by Ruth Levin, traveling through time and space within African texture in Sharon Harvey’s “Behind the Eyes of a Venus.”
One of the more reflective pieces was by Justine Comfort, titled “Flesh and a Broken Whisper.” This piece used a poem called “Autotomy” by Wis?awa Szymborska as its driving force to emphasise how individuals at times have to divide themselves to survive.
But as the poem illustrates, they can only divide “…into flesh and poetry. The throat on one side, laughter on the other, quiet, quickly dying out.”
The show also pulled on some heartstrings with a nostalgic performance by Maria Victoria Mata Soledad called “Lejania (Distant),” which took us to a place far from here, but a place very present in Soledad’s mind. In fact, presence was a significant theme in her performance.
Through an exhausting, tear-jerking and undoubtedly prepossessing performance, Marie France Forcier’s dark humor explored how trauma builds identity, in Forcier’s contemporary choreography, “Little Guidebook for Using your Suffering Wisely.”
With Callison serving as artistic director and Professor William Mackwood as the director of design, this year’s MFA Fall Dance production could not have been more engaging.
The eight choreographers in York’s MFA program in dance brought their thesis research to the stage with power, individuality, and truth.
Pavan Kabar Ubhi
Contributor
