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IMPRESSIONS: Milka Djordjevich’s "Bob" at New York Live Arts
By Hannah Lipman
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Published on January 23, 2025
Milka Djordjevich’s "Bob"; Photo: Maria Baranova
Choreographed by: Milka Djordjevich
Performed by: Milka Djordjevich
Music by: Milka Djordjevich
Lighting Design by: Madeline Best
Design Advising by: Shannon Scrofano
It’s often a challenge to translate experiences of dance performance into words;their ecstatic explosions can be difficult to identify during and, even after, the event. In other words, movement transcends verbiage and Milka Djordjevich’s "Bob," showcased at New York Live Arts, was no exception to this concept. This one-woman show trapped me in a subconscious realm that was at once striking, meditative, disruptive, and intelligent.
"Bob" consisted of two parts: a bright aerobic showcase and a mystical metamorphosis. The first half could be considered a workout, both for Djordjevich and the viewer. Set to a head-nodding techno score composed by Djordjevich, “Bob” (Djordjevich’s alter-ego) enters the mirror-framed studio space wearing bright green leggings, purple knee protectors, a baby-blue short-sleeved crop top, and white dance sneakers. Her hair is tied up in a French twist with brunette bangs framing a face void of expression. At times Bob dons an accusatory stare, as her lips remain taught, bright red and prominent.
She bounces across the studio, mapping varied diagonal lines, hopping forward with her feet stuck together in parallel or grapevining from one side of the Marley to the other. Her hands cradle her butt, her breasts, her head, and back again. The triangular shapes created by her elbows jutting sideways add layers of angularity to the geometrically spaced sequences. As the musical tempo increased, the movement follows suit, its plodding predictability devolving slowly into frantic, thoughtless repetition. In these instances, I was reminded of Pina Bausch, a Bop It Toy, and the saying, a la Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
A meticulous mathematical quality appears with Bob as the conduit, her appendages moving with measured pauses. The monotony of movement and music leads to momentary comfort and groundedness. Gradual almost unidentifiable changes blur the familiar with the new. The process encourages us to lose ourselves within the confines of the work. “Bob” induces a nearly trance-like state.
Through this systematic choreography, Djordjevich morphs from one notion of femininity to another, embodying womanhood as an analogous representation of sex. Instead of a self-motivated liberatory act, her sexy mission of self-improvement seems devoid of any deep-seated desire, interest, or intention.
Though she opens herself up, literally spreading her legs and thrusting the air, she remains inscrutable. Even after folding the top half of her leggings down to serve as a resistance band, and exposing herself, in a g-string, to perform lateral walking squats, her near nudity doesn’t register as vulnerable or sensuous. Rather, her body conveys itself as a vessel for rectification, a trophy of aesthetic value, stemming from the utilitarian duty to perfect her/itself. I wished to know more of “Bob”-- to be offered an intimacy to her inner world that I did not deserve or perhaps wasn’t existent.
As she kicked back into arabesques, evoking an across-the-floor jazz exercise, she looked out into the cavernous audience – our anonymity instantly made fragile. Her gaze fearless, yet glassy and guarded, enabled her being to encompass whatever I projected.
Her vacuous orbs were nowhere near revealing, and yet I felt vulnerable as I cast myself upon her blank sweating form. All of a sudden she was not just me, or her, but everyone mindlessly and mindfully working out their bodies and brains in hopes of better attunement to the world. Notions like results, youth, love, and time came to mind as I watched her exhaust herself until she disappeared behind the mirrors. This concluded the first section. (Having realized I was tracing an idea of myself onto her, I felt I was both an aggressor and a victim. This befuddling opposition gave way to a dark heady entrapment.)
In the second half, Bob reentered the space as an apparition of kink through moss-colored fog. Ghoulish and wayward, the Bob we acclimated to as a Jazzercise Queen, was now hidden underneath layers of black latex and mesh. The costume served as a hodgepodge of heuristics, transforming Djordjevich into a vivid collage of BDSM. With her hair down, and body upright in impossibly high, black platform heels, she shuffled forwards, her latex gloves and pants squeaking softly.
Molting to the floor and assuming all fours, the doll-like figure’s back leg extends and trembles, similar to the earlier workout exercises only this time, layers are removed. She shakes off her shoes and army-crawls forward, discarding her pants and gloves. In the process, she becomes a wriggling, writhing fish on the floor, her mesh casing glimmering in the cool-toned lights. She is a wavering flag of libido, a shed item surrounded by the latex that confined and defined her. She slides around in front of the mirror, hunching over the remnants of costumery, and perhaps a former self. She lies down, staring up at the ceiling, exhausted. After sitting in front of the mirror, breathing and gazing at herself, she gets up and disappears behind her reflection.
Djordjevich tracks the mindless and mindful assumption of grueling femininity, encapsulating the paradox of appearance and desirability. With her psychic landscape locked away, it seems “Bob” can only be freed by abandoning attire, as if nudity is the closest one can come to some emblem of truth.
