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IMPRESSIONS: Kayla Farrish's Put Away the Fire, dear at Chelsea Factory
By Catherine Tharin
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Published on March 17, 2025
Kayla Farrish's Put Away the Fire, dear. Photo: Elyse Mertz
Chelsea Factory presents
Put Away the Fire, dear
Creator, Writer and Director: Kayla Farrish in collaboration with performing artists and designers
Cast/Performing Artists and Script, Character, and Movement Creation: Jessica Alexander, Makaila Chiplin, Kayla Farrish, Martell Ruffin, Junyla Silmon, and Christian A. Warner
Additional Creative Collaborators: Kerime Konur and Truth Colón
Music Composition and Performance: Alex MacKinnon
Scenic Design: Dyer Rhoads
Lighting Design: Yannick Godts
Filmmaking Collaborators and Projections: Garrett Parker, Jessica Karis Ray, and Kayla Farrish
Costume Design: Caitlin Taylor in collaboration with Kayla Farrish
March 6-8, 2025
On a darkened stage a drum roll introduces choreographer, playwright and director Kayla Farrish’s Put Away the Fire, dear at the inviting Chelsea Factory, March 6-8, 2025. A woman, Junyla Silmon, dressed in a rust-colored skirt and a blouse with white polka dots, perches on a chair. In front of her face dangles a bare light bulb that she taps and sends swinging. “You really are a fool. You must believe that now,” she murmurs. A man, Christian A. Warner, as quick as can be, spins on relevé with an open chest and pendulous arms, and responds, “Hello, hello, I’m down here.” He drops to the floor only to spring up again, and then pushes the air with his hands.
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Thus begins a full-out, feet-to-the-fire, whirlwind performance that rushes by as if Farrish’s life depends upon it. Consisting of short scenes both danced and spoken by a turn-on-a-dime cast, the four women and two men, costumed in early 20th-century-inspired clothing, morph from persona to persona as they search for meaning and definition. One hundred minutes long, and divided in two parts, this stream of consciousness abstraction is based on the lives and work of such notable Black artists as scholar and author Zora Neale Hurston, Oscar Micheaux, (the founder of Black American cinema), and entertainers Bojangles, Lena Horne and Josephine Baker, among many others. The primary message is one of overcoming an oppressed past to live in a future of one’s dreams. The structure seems loosely based on Hurston’s writings that imply the effect of racism but concentrate on self-revelation and relationship. (In conjunction with the performances, Farrish taught a workshop titled, “Conjuring Memory, Reclamation, and Community - How We Rewrite Our Narratives.”)
Friends greeted friends with many happy exclamations during this sold-out show, in which a captivating film projected on a ruffling scrim portrays a grey and ghostly head-wrapped woman fetching water. Behind the scrim designer Dyer Rhoads’ domestic scene of table and chairs, wallpaper, portraits, and curtains peaks through. On the other side of the stage, a wood-framed, opaque screen sits before a desk littered with items including an old-fashioned typewriter (presumably Hurston’s). While the furniture and items stay, the screen redefines the stage space as it is moved from place to place. Alex MacKinnon, composer and musician, provides an atmospheric sound loop that features the inventive clacking, bumping, and shaking of kitchen-like implements. A multi-instrumentalist, he accompanies on drums, piano and guitar.
Loose-limbed Martell Ruffin, in houndstooth jacket, dreamily utters, “Life is but a dream. We invite love,” as he turns in front attitude and dances precise and vivid versions of tap, Lindy Hop, and Charleston. The charismatic Makaila Chiplin, wearing striped pants and holding a vintage movie camera (alluding to Micheaux) adds, “I am here all the time. I see you. You’re not invisible.” She continues, “Swing low, swing high, but not too high. I’m waiting to be seen. Are we myth or legacy?”
Plaid-skirted Farrish, alone on stage, singsongs, “Mammy, mammy made you,” words of longing with a complex racial past. Her upper body shakes. She flaps her hands, and runs, kicks, and leaps. Jessica Alexander, in a long grey coat sits on a chair with her back to the audience. Later she grabs a suitcase and goes, perhaps alluding to Black migration. Alexander is the only (presumed) white dancer in the piece, and given this country’s history of racism, does she represent whiteness?
Scene swiftly follows scene, as characters fly across the stage to caress, murder, carry, soothe, drag, cling, and converse. “If you fall, I fall,” says one. The plentitude of information piles up, and overwhelms. The voracious and ever-inspired Farrish has reams more to say; much more than this one, compacted show can contain.
The second half intends to offer catharsis but, as in the first half, the message is often obfuscated and scattered by too much happening at once. Given the rich dialogue, and the inventiveness of the movement and partnering, one longs for a clear line of development. The work would benefit from paring. The third iteration of this dance in three years (it appeared previously at the LaMaMa Moves Festival! and Triskelion Theater ), Put Away the Fire, dear has not yet found its way. The final inclusive circle, the first time this shape is seen, offers a crowning thought, “I am somebody. I am free.”
