Yesterday, intercosmically esteemed director D. Max Prum
invited this writer to a dance performance put on at Green Street Studios by
Cambridge’s Molly Hess + company. Having blown off invitations from others to
said studio in the past, I thought it would be a grand opportunity to finally
make it over there.
I doubted I would be disappointed, and figured it would
be an entertaining evening. The only problem was, I was waiting for my friend,
who didn’t have a phone, and having a drink beforehand at the Middle East with
our other friend, waiting for our friend but knowing I had to ultimately choose
to head over for the performance at 8. I stepped outside the bar to light a
light blue American Spirit and ran into Mr. Benjamin Simon, a great guy and
fantastic musician who I had known longer than I was legally supposed to be
smoking this cigarette but never really had the chance to catch a live
performance. We talked and smoked, we smoked and talked, and Ben said he was
playing music at the dance show Molly was doing so I said, “Let’s go!”
At this point I left my friend to wait for my other
friend and went to enjoy the show. I knew I couldn’t pay for their cheap and/or
broke asses to come in anyway, so I paid my $15 to support the local arts
community and went upstairs, seeing a few familiar faces before the lights
dimmed and Molly came out and on.
Since I did end up going to look for my friend during
what functioned as their intermission, and between a bottle of heffeweissen and
several cigs I did not make it back for the rest of the show, I can only
describe my following impression of the first half:
The set seen first, the piece is called “Prom Out of
Water”, created and performed by Molly Hess & Frances Idlebrook. Well! In
many ways it was more exciting than the CRLS senior prom when I was in high
school; nonetheless I did not feel out of water myself.
It is difficult to describe the running, leaping,
frolicking and general gaiety enfolding onstage, as I am not a trained critic
of choreography, nor even a patient observer most of the time unless the score
is Tchaikovsky – but this was so captivating, so penetrating to the ? in my
soul that never stops sensing wonder, that I was immediately glued to my seat
and remained so even when I felt the overwhelming desire to get up and dance
myself.
I am sure you could find other audience members who “got
it” better than I did, to tell you how funny it was and how great the dancers
looked, how poignant the social commentary…and that may well be true. But, as a
student of Western Philosophy beginning with King Solomon and Anaximander, all
the way to present wise men like Kool Keith, I could not help being at turns
overwhelmed and overjoyed by the way Molly and Frances wrestled with so many
pressing questions with boundless joy and enthusiasm, and a dignity even more
uncommon than grace in the medium.
I had never thought this way about life before; about
love and sexuality, about the afterlife or the possibility that some people don’t
even need a Heaven, because anyway we
were all having so much fun on Earth, last night on Green Street.
What more can I say? The next piece, Steeped, was well
executed, but there were now more than two women dancing around on the stage
and, while that may have added to the excitement for some, the intimate
exchange of Chi between the two dancers in the first number pretty much set me
up to never find anything equal in the realm of Mother Terpsichore.
This was somewhat interspersed and then concluded with
music by Hoonah (Sarah Smith) and it was truly moving. Unfortunately I had to
run when Molly gave a Yarn Untangling Tutorial…I guess I’ll never get that ball
unwound. Oh well! The cat can play…
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