I saw gesel mason’s performance, whose body is this?, at the millennium stage yesterday. i really enjoyed it. it contained a variety of dancers, a spoken word artist (who may also be a dancer), a live musician, text by the dancers, and video.

One of the things i loved about the piece was that gesel used the space in a very novel way. instead of putting the whole performance on the stage, where practically no one can actually see anything, she added a second, smaller, platform about 30 feet back, and then split the chairs so that they were on either side of a walkway between the two stages. it meant that just about everyone could see, and it added an intimate and playful feel to the space that changed it completely. usually i find the millennium stage to be sort of awful, almost like the kennedy center doesn’t care enough to make it user-friendly, but this arrangement fit perfectly with a performance that was emotional and very varied.

Gesel’s dancers were great and it seemed that each one’s personality was able to shine out. i liked the choreography, as well as the text spoken between two women who were just being themselves, not playing roles.

Another thing i really noticed was how wonderful and captivating it was when the spoken word artist piped up. she seemed to be trained as an actress, and her voice resonated with meaning and emotion and irony. i must say, she made it immediately clear why certain dance pieces that contain text are more effective than others–so much of it is in the presentation! and most dancers are simply not trained to speak…though i’m sure that can be overcome.