when is a tongue not a tongue?

It’s rare that I feel my attention focused and manipulated so precisely as it was on Saturday afternoon during Kelly Bond’s performance of Splitting the Difference during the Fall Fringe festival. Laser-like precision was involved in this one-woman work as Bond compelled her viewers to observe her tongue, her thighs, her teeth. It wasn’t as simple as this suggests. While specific body parts were highlighted at times, there were also moments where attention was brought to a whole pose, or to the relationship of hair to shirt to breath.

The entire performance was simultaneously riveting and uncomfortable. I was embarrassed to find myself unable to stop a small fit of awkward giggling as Bond made eye contact during a particularly acute segment involving mouth stretching. Any performance that can provoke an uncontrollable visceral physical reaction is going to have my admiration.

The beginning of the fantastically weird piece is going to be reverberating in my body for a long while; Bond entered the stage and inquired in her normal voice, “can everyone see me if I stand here?” before almost instantly launching into the awkward mouth stretching bit. The juxtaposition of the everyday with the extraordinary was jarring and set the stage for more small shocks to the conscious. There were definitely alien bodies involved, especially during a section focused on the tongue, which was unbelievably strange. I felt as if a small, fleshy creature had taken up residence inside of Bond’s body and kept trying to force its way out, via her mouth. It was a tongue that did not look like a tongue. Bond’s shoulder blades became continents that slowly drifted across her back, as her thighs converted into rivers as they were isolated and left to freely ripple for several minutes.

Bond left her audience with a haunting ending as well: a simple jump, as if she were jumping rope but without the rope, repeated. Then the lights went out and we were left only with the sound of her sneakers hitting the stage, for a perfectly long time. The question from the beginning was repeated, “can everyone see me if I stand here?”, but this time in the dark.

Later that night I inadvertently hit the side of my head on a chair, with force. A large purple bruise arose between my eye and my eyebrow. It felt oddly complementary to the performance as I imagined alternative narratives for the bruise. Like, I had been in a ferocious moshpit at a secret show, or I had been in a fight with an uncooperative foe. Splitting the Difference, along with my injury, made me think about how physical narratives shape how we are and how we feel. How our stories become embedded in our bodies. And the various alien bodies inside all of us, whether we acknowledge them or not.

$1 dance bargain

I live in DC, where there are lots of university libraries, lots of public libraries, and the lovely Library of Congress. You would think that finding back issues of Contact Quarterly would be a cinch. Contact Quarterly bills itself as a “journal of dance, improvisation, performance, and contemporary movement arts” and “is the longest living, independent, artist-made, not-for-profit, reader-supported magazine devoted to the dancer’s voice.” Doesn’t that sound like a good way to spend a fall afternoon? But sadly, any back issues that exist in my city are kept under lock and key, not available to the general public without bureaucratic hoop-jumping. (The scene at the George Washington University library included me begging, pleading, and trying every possible connection I could think of to get past the library gatekeeper, all to no avail.)

So imagine my delight when it turns out that from right now until January 31, you can get back issues of CQ for $1! I stocked up on a few and have been finding gems from the past left and right. If you’ve never read Contact Quarterly before, here’s a perfect chance to get your hands on a few. If you’re already a subscriber, maybe your collection has a few holes in it. And if you’re not a subscriber… why not think about supporting some independent dance media? Who knows, maybe you need some Chinese kneepads while you’re at it!

Mike Disfarmer comes to life

Puppeteer Tom Lee with Mike Disfarmer

I kept expecting Mike Disfarmer, the reclusive small-town Arkansas portrait photographer at the heart of Dan Hurlin’s puppet performance, to impatiently shake off his puppeteer handlers. “I can do this myself, leave me alone!,” I could almost hear him saying. Happily for the audience, Disfarmer didn’t succeed in completely coming to life and shedding his larger companions because the interaction between the puppeteers and the Disfarmer puppet was one of the most arresting pieces of a fascinating performance.

There was so much to marvel at. The lighting design a true tour de force from Tyler Micoleau; I didn’t know light could be manipulated so delicately on a stage. The original music by Dan Moses Schreier with violins, banjo, and accordian all used to amazing affect. The narration by Dan Hurlin, done in perfect cantankerosity. And so I found that I could absorb the production on Thursday night at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on several different levels.

I could be engaged only in the sheer technical ingenuity of the production. At times I found myself floating along like a small child might, content to grasp the story and the mood from the evocative music alone. At other times I got lost in tiny details and would wonder at it for several seconds before moving on to the next tiny, perfect moment, such as how Disfarmer gently tucks his hand in between his legs while nestling into bed, as if to comfort himself. Sometimes I had to remind myself that the puppeteers were not supposed to be the main point of focus. Maybe it’s just my over-infatuation with the human body, but the image of a puppeteer standing aloof from the group, his silhouette against a blue background, leaning slightly away from the group but taut and ready to assist as needed…. it was as compelling as anything that the puppet did.

But I wasn’t involved with every cell in my body until Disfarmer started shrinking. The photographer continued to go about his day-to-day, but getting smaller each time, which proved to be an ingeniously open and ambiguous device. I read it as a disability narrative, as Disfarmer kept compensating and adjusting as his life became increasingly difficult to navigate. But he was no less alive, no less human. Or he could have been simply aging, or becoming circumscribed by his own madness, or choosing an ever-more-complete isolation.

The end was no less ambiguous. I was watching keenly the whole time, expecting death for Disfarmer and curious to see what it was going to look like. Eyes peeled. And yet somehow, I missed it. He climbed up into the cloth drape of his camera and then he was gone. I know I missed other bits as well, but I’m glad to have had a glimpse into the life of tornado foundling Mike Disfarmer, and to have witnessed the affection and tenderness flowing into him from his expert puppeteers.

November picks

It’s November already, eek!! Here are some Widening the I picks for the upcoming weeks.

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at University of Maryland is presenting Dan Hurlin’s bunraku puppet performance piece that focuses on the life of American photographer and hermit Mike Disfarmer. The always-astute Claudia LaRocco had this praise for the work: “Dan Hurlin’s puppet-theater meditation on the remarkable portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer was one of the most satisfying shows I’ve seen in a long time, and one of the best commentaries on the slow, maddening drip of artistic creation I can remember seeing.” So you have banjo music, puppetry, and a solid endorsement from Claudia. Sounds like a sure-fire ticket. Buy yourself one or two here.

If you weren’t able to make it up to Philadelphia to see local talent Kelly Bond earlier this fall, now is your chance to catch her in DC. Fall Fringe November features three favorite former Fringe performers doing their thing to keep the Fringe alive all year long. Kelly will be doing six performances so there’s bound to be at least one that fits your schedule. Mississippi color guard mixes with European avant-garde. See what comes out of the mixture.

Aysha Upchurch and her Life, Rhythm, Move Project come to Dance Place on November 7 and 8. Dance Place says, “Retrofuturistic is a play on time travel and science fiction, all while examining the theme of ‘men are from Mars and women are from Venus.’ It is has all the fun, entertaining appeal of hip hop dance, but also raises some questions about what we are doing to our planet, environmentally and socially.” Their performance at the DC Metro Dance Awards looked pretty tight, and a whole evening of the group should be a treat. Plus it’s at Dance Place, where the positive community vibe could keep you warm all winter long.