Features > Impressions The Dance Enthusiast's Brand of Review/Thoughts on What We See

IMPRESSIONS: Malcolm-x Betts + Nile Harris "Temporary Boyfriend" at The Chocolate Factory Theater

Performers: Nile Harris and Malcolm-x Betts

Scenic and Technical Director: Dyer Rhoads

Sound Designer: Geng PTP

Costume Designer: Malcolm-x Betts

Production Coordinator/Board Operator: Ariana Swei

Commissioned and Presented by The Chocolate Factory Theater, Under the Radar Festival, and Ping Chong and Company

 

All Photos: Brian Rogers

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bookend gunshots

nervy dark

uncertain light

scalable sound structures 

sheer rocky landscapes

wide heaving oceans

the comforts of unpredictability

improvised collaborations

crack open histories

present presence distilled

imagine future utopias

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what happened happens only once

only this happening

yet over and over happening

a singular enactment of the eternal unknowable

what I saw is not what you saw

what I’ve seen is not what you’ve seen

what I can see is not what you can see

perspective requires being outside

which also requires

an inside

so here we are

together

outside

inside

together

 

what happens?

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aluminum ding of a citibike bell

a lightly taunting whistle

flickering white headlight jerks and pans

flashing red tail light follows

a known object

ordinary

made unknown

erratic

voices rise

tire skid

squeal of brakes stop short

we almost collide

almost fall

a precarious balance

who’s steering

who’s guiding

who’s steady

who’s exalted

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

legs kick and spring

arms float and retract

spines pick up and put down

a sense of dodging

untrackable

feet quiet

bodies garrulous

up down and around and round

cadence of rambling speech

clarity of diction

swagger of slang

(or is it the other way around?)

front body bared in ecstatic layouts and inexorable hinges

unknowable attitudes

arabesques become history’s compass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tones tighten and expand

vernacular gesture in directional motive

quotation meets context

shapes and sounds recur and distort

edges hard and soft around a persistent core

spasms of knowing

glimpse fragments of a powerful whole

 

the sanctity of praise

the fear of god

a reclamation of formalism

and its disintegration

its rejection

its rebirth

in cathartic chaos

how to make whole

how to make praise

how to make blessings

of the punishing hard ground

and the rapture of flight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

conspiratorial intimacies nakedly opaque

the urgency and timelessness of love

“it’s never too late to say I love you”

how many ways can we speak love

how many ways can we feel love

how many ways can we embody love

in comfort and fear

in pain and triumph

steady and unknowing

bodies flash in silhouette

their gravity

their sweat

in apocalyptic orange glow and baby oil sheen

hurtling through everything we know

everything we don’t know

everything we’ll never know

glimpse what’s lost in the unknowable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

no matter what

we all flinch at a gunshot

who’s this one for?

 

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