Flash Response:

Caution: Women at Work

By Sara Draper & Donna Garrett

by Margo Stutts Toombs

Lovers of dance and poetry were treated to a heart-warming blend of both at the Dancepatheatre premier of Caution:  Women at Work at Barnevelder Theatre on March 8, 2009.

True to the Dancepatheatre’s trademark of blending contemporary dance with story, word, and voice, artistic director Sara Draper assembled internationally renowned African American  poet, Donna Garrett, with two of Houston’s most engaging dancers Lindsey McGill and Catalina Molnari to weave a story of racism and healing.

Ms. Garrett delivered her poetry against a background of jazz; some of which was recorded in Taipei, Taiwan, specifically for Garrett’s poetry performances when she was there by invitation to perform in the country’s Black History Month.

In addition to Ms. Garrett’s powerful renditions of her poetry punctuated by equally moving dance performances, the show also featured Ms. Draper’s humorous dance piece, Calves, and the more serious, Not, Ms. Draper’s story of the acknowledgement of racism in a family.

All of this, plus the staging and lighting design at Barnevelder made this theatrical experience something that I hope will be repeated in the near future.  I have friends with whom I would like to share this experience.

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by Toni Leago Valle

Ok.  Its Sunday evening and I’ve been in the theatre since the beginning of the year.  No joke. January and February were spent in preparation, performance, and clean up of Tetris.  Immediately after closing the doors on the storage shed for the Tetris puzzle set and scrubbing paint off the Barnevelder marley, I started rehearsals for Divergence Vocal Theatre’s  The 10^th Muse, and I’ve also seen a few shows - Sandra Organ Dance Company and Suchu Dance.

Burnt out on Barnevelder  - sounds like a bad country song - but you get the idea.

But, dance must go on, and both Sara and Donna are not only friends, they have been collaborators, and fellow Fielders for years (www.thefield.org).  I respect their work and their message, and besides, Lindsey and Cata were dancing too, so I knew something interesting was going to happen.

The evening began with the edgy, We Live, a poem recited by Donna Garrett to jazz music with Lindsey McGill and Catalina Molnari dancing a duet.  I am riveted by Donna’s presence –if you have not seen Donna perform, you have missed out.  This woman not only writes on the page eloquently, but she can deliver it like nobody’s business.  Her unusual height, deep brown skin color and short dreadlocks spiking all over her head, she is an imposing figure, even when sitting down.  Couple that with her rich, deep timbre of a voice, her melodramatic enunciation, and her expressive eyes and facial gestures, and she creates such a complex ensemble onstage that Donna gives any other performer a run for his/her money. 

The content of We Live rolls over me like a battleship.  It’s about slavery and oppression- a common theme for Black History Month, but with a twist.  We see it through Donna’s eyes – the effects of slavery on her own generation, of how African-Americans live with its legacy.  My eyes jump from Donna to Cata and Lindsey –who are wearing blue button down shirts and black pants.  I don’t like the costumes- they tell me nothing about the piece.  However, the movement is a perfect compliment to the words and I am thanking God its not a literal translation of the text.  The dancing is traditional modern mixed with gesture, but this piece is not meant to be easy to watch or feel.   There are a few moments that make my skin crawl – a tableau of a master and servant that pops up, a repeated phrase of covering each others eyes- ears, mouth that makes the performers appear to be willing participants in the cover-up.  And, after being mostly removed from Donna, there is a moment of Lindsey and Cata crawling towards Donna that freaks me out because it appears that the past will catch her, eat her up, regardless of her words, “hopefulness out of hopelessness.”

By the time its over, I’m a little tired.  I need to recover. 

I do so during Donna’s My Story, with Cata dancing a solo behind her. I do not feel the same connection of words to movement with this piece, the more recent historical references are familiar- riding the back of the bus, riots – and it feels like a let down after the emotional high of the opener.  However, Donna steals the limelight by singing, and her voice rings out through Barnevelder, eclipsing three singers who join her from the audience.  I am disturbed by these singers –who are they?  Why did they suddenly appear from the audience?

Moving on – it is Sara Draper’s turn in speaking her text, Not.  Not is a prose piece by Sara about growing up unaware of her parent’s racist views and how those views colored her own childhood without her knowledge.  I’ve heard it before, many years ago, and the text is amazing all by itself.  It is a moment of self realization and the realization that parents are people too.  It is also fresh to hear a white person’s point of view on the subject of racism.  Excuse me –Anglo.  There were some stage choices here that I was confused by –the dancers onstage as some type of opponents- a low light fixture that is swung by one dancer while the other angrily grabs Sara’s hat off her head – reminds me of an interrogation room.  I wonder why Sara has chosen to make this incredible moment of self-realization into more of a moment of a “hostile witness,” one that does not want to face this knowledge.  Equally confusing is the directional change of Sara talking first to the dancers then switching to the audience.  Have we become the interrogators?

These staging choices aside, Sara delivers a heartfelt, honest, and moving performance, with a little humor thrown in (“My father allowed my mother to raise us Catholic, so he couldn’t be a racist.”) I know Sara- and she is meticulous in her process –whether choreographing, writing, or performing, and each line is delivered with care.  There is even a moment of self-imposed strangulation as she whispers the word “racist” - as if saying the word will make it come true.

Just as I am wondering if the whole night will be cultural/sociological views with a political point, Donna emerges to speak Jazz while this time Lindsey dances – surprise – jazz moves.  And I don’t mean jazz hands – I mean gyrating hips, beatnik walking, old school, saxophone toe-tapping jazz.  Is there nothing this woman can’t dance?  Donna smiles and talk about the effects of jazz music on her soul and body as Lindsey smiles and illustrated jazz as I’m smiling at the both of them.  Steve Derry sitting next to me is smiling too.

The smiling continues with Draper’s Calves – an extension of her Life Museum pieces, where Draper creates moments based on a body part.  I’ve danced a few of these pieces myself- Legs and Feet, and even a (ahem) derriere dance. Calves focuses on a playful moment in adolescence – a preteen girl caught between child and woman, who alternates between slapping bugs on her legs and swishing her hips in what she thinks is a “feminine” manner.  Its endearing and cute and a perfect release from the more introspective works seen earlier.

By now I’m ready to see the finale, In My Lifetime.  Spoken by Donna and danced by both Lindsay and Cata. We are back where we started.  After being privy to the inner thoughts of both Donna and Sara, it is as if we were taken on a small journey and came through it a little scathed but better human beings.  In My Lifetime is uplifting as Donna reiterates the era she grew up in, but moves on out of the past to the present, where her history, her life, and her work, have all come to a pivot point – the historical moment of witnessing President Obama being elected.  I get it in a way that I could not before, as I have not been raised in an era where black children went to different schools and their parents had to walk to the back of the bus. As it closes, the dancers arm in arm with Donna in the middle, I get it.  The future is truly walking its way to diversity creates unity. 

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