That flickering tongue
Review
NOTE: This show was for mature audiences: it contained swears and adult images. I will therefore be taking on that tone and addressing the subjects like they were presented to me, rather than trying to be polite and appropriate about it. In other words: I'm gonna say fuck and talk about sex in this post. Future employers: I'm still really professional. I swear.
I will say that you missed a hell of a fucking show. I watched a mermaid flicker her tongue with the precision of a laser in different directions (total Pomo Boner)—I saw a reverse 69 with a polar bear—I also saw a woman give fellatio to a broom, and another cunnalingus to a block of ice. More on that later.
The League of Red Herrings was one of those shows that reminded me why I fucking love modern dance. While the first half of the evening—choreographed by the intensely admirable Judith Howard—was intensely smart, well structured, and really beautiful. I have a lot more to say about the second half of the show: Mad King Thomas' The World Is Your Oyster Eat Up, Little Pearl. I will say, though, before I go into MKT's piece, I need to mention a few things that I noticed and loved about the first half.
To start, I just need to say this so I can get it out of the way. I wrote this down in big bold letters. I don't know if this is creepy or wrong—cause it feels neither—but, April Sellers: "I want to be that block of ice, and I want to be your tongue—both, altogether;" not in a literal way, but in a I-don't-know kind of way. There, that's passed.
This brings me to when I saw what looked like a woman doing 69 with a polar bear. But this wasn't sexy, or deviant-like; it was off and haunting. I then watched her pull her black dress over its face and smother it like a mobster who's been sent to the hospital with a pillow to off a rat. This solo was chilling. With the pace and duration of movement being so intently choreographed, I found myself spending more time watching the limpness of the giant stuffed polar bear. The polar bear who neither fought, nor fled, but helplessly endured the dance—all to the sound of a sad and beautiful piano and an old school film projector. Lots of people laughed—because, let's face it, a woman rolling around with a giant stuffed bear is funny—but the funny thing about this is that it totally wasn't funny.
This fucking bear and this melting ice (there were blocks of ice hanging and melting from the rafters)—and even this woman's giant hat—weren't funny. Like the limp bear, it felt helpless; helpless, but not passive. There wasn't a thing about anything I saw in this show that was; I never felt taken for granted or taken advantage of.
The World Is Your Oyster Eat Up, Little Pearl. I love MKT's work because they are their work. You couldn't set a MKT piece on any three other women and have it work the way it should. This was the satisfying PoMo equivalent of an hour plus wank session in front of the computer. I'm not saying that this piece was masturbatory, but it was orgasmic to the senses and to me, the audience member. Pardon my crudeness—however, I think in regards to these ladies and Pearl specifically, it fits: holy hell, as if I didn't have an Art boner big enough already for Mad King Thomas—they knocked my socks off.
To start, I had no idea what the piece was about. MKT's reputation preceded them. I didn't read the marketing materials or even the program notes very closely, so you can imagine my joy when I saw that this piece involved a deliciously coy mermaid—a mermaid! A siren! It must be noted that Monica Thomas should be commended for her many qualities—being a gracious and lovely person amongst them—but if she can't isolate and flicker her tongue with the control of . . . hell, of I-don't-know-what, but Bra—freaking—Va! I've not seen the tongue used as choreographic gesture tool before—this was up there with the Adam's apple in Vanessa Voskuil's truly breath-taking dance film Haven.
It was also delightful and refreshing—to the baseness in me—that Porn was in MKT's arsenal of influences. What started as a flirtation between the mermaid and audience became a subjectification. I had to sit with other people—some my parent's age—and endure the wagging of her tongue and try my damnedest not to think about how amazing she would be at oral sex on another female. There. I said it. But to hell with John or Jane Anyone in the crowd who claims they weren't thinking the same thing. The overt sexuality of the women and the piece continued to grow, so to speak, over time.
It wasn't too long until Monica's mermaid—or was it Theresa's smoking ballarina—someone was slapping Tara King across the face with a fish—not in aims to hurt, but hard enough to humiliate, or leave an impression. And—it should be noted—this was a real fish. A real fish that came from Monica's underpants.
The sexual images and actions continued—Theresa fucked herself from behind by a lit cigarette, glitter fell from her underpants and she swept it up with a broom that all-too-quickly (and thank God for it) became a dick which she sucked on then stroked like a guitar and wailed into like it was a microphone—Jimmy Page and Robert Plant move over—way over. Oh yeah, then she took a hot dog out of her underwear and ate it.
I love dance.
