Audience Reviews

AUDIENCE REVIEW: Middle Child Dance Theatre and Mud Movement Present: PLAY DATE

Company:
Middle Child Dance Theatre & Mud Movement

Performance Date:
April 12, 2025

Freeform Review:

On Saturday, April 12th, I sat down at Flushing Town Hall expecting to watch a dance show. Having been to performances of Mare Nostrum Elements’ Emerging Choreographer’s Series (ECS), I knew I could expect to be entertained, intellectually stimulated, and hopefully emotionally moved. Still, I wasn’t expecting to be viscerally transported back into a memory of another time or to leave the theater with nostalgia dripping from my pores, yet that’s exactly what happened. The split bill performance I witnessed that evening was jointly titled “PLAY DATE,” and it did more than just move me; it made me feel seen and intimately known. Each artist spoke to experiences in a way that went beyond the universal and into the personal, and both pieces felt as if the artists were confiding to me in a diary entry and letting me peer into their dreams. In fact, the evening of work came with an interactive zine that resembled a diary or one of the famous “Coke or Pepsi” fill-in-the-blank books that were popular in the early 2000’s. The zine gave me a window into the world of “PLAY DATE,” asking questions like “Would you rather have a best friend or a boyfriend?” and teeming with poetry about becoming. It set the stage before the curtain even opened and allowed us to know the world we were entering and more importantly, it offered us the same freedom those do-it-yourself books did: a chance to co-author the story. 

The evening began with Heather Dutton’s work, “You’re Actually The Last Person I Wanted To See Today.” The curtain opened to reveal five dancers, all facing the dancer at the front who faced them, demonstrating gestural movements which the others mirrored.  They all danced together in silence following the timing of the leader, until they started to speak the text of a diary entry in unison. This moment made me question the relationship between the dancers, wondering if they were all figments of the followers imagination or characters in their diary. However, when the music comes on, the dynamics change and each character becomes realized in the scene in their own rite. Soon the dancers will all be attending a slumber party together, but in these first moments we catch them standing in the mirror in their own bedrooms. 

This image brought to mind the memory of “bedroom dances,” the kind with the hairbrush microphone and the pop hits you sing at the top of your lungs while getting ready. As the dancers pantomimed popping zits and curling their hair, I remembered what it was like to start my day with that moment of self reflection and intimacy, especially in my early adolescence. It brought me joy to watch the dancers incorporate power posing, making muscles in the mirror and hyping themselves up for the day. Soon they’d meet up with their friends, sliding into social dynamics and shaping themselves, but at this moment they were unbridled and fully themselves, a critical choreographic choice. Dutton could have dropped us right into the sleepover, but instead she gave us a way to see each dancer as an individual which only strengthened their character development and personhood. 

These dancers' paths do converge at a slumber party and we as an audience get to experience the many layers of their friendship — the cattiness, secrets, whimsy, games, and true love for one another. This work is full of intricate movement, detailed gesture phrase work, and elaborate partnering that felt both risky and full of ease at the same time. The movement quality of these dancers felt carefree, and yet there was clearly so much palpable care for one another. Additionally, the gesture phrase from the beginning was revisited in many iterations throughout the work and motifs emerged, but every time they were reprised it brought new meaning and depth to the narrative. Dutton’s choreographic voice is as strong as their storytelling, and the way they blend movement and narrative is distinct and honestly profound. 

Most importantly, this piece looked back on girlhood through a queer lens, challenging audience members to look to their own childhood experiences and reflect on how it shaped their becoming. As I faced my own childhood, I remembered the crushes, “practice kisses,” friend obsessions and more. Dutton facilitated a space where I was able to reminisce through these seemingly-whimsical vignettes while also asking me to question the social systems we raise girls in and how it impacts their coming of age. Overall, this piece was so smart, relatable, and real; I couldn’t get enough of it, and I hope to see Dutton continue this work with her emerging company Middle Child Dance Theatre. 

The second half of the evening was just as thought-provoking and emotionally effective as the first. Jacqui M. Dugal’s “They Were Once” was a sharp pivot from the slumber parties in part one, conjuring images that were raw and nightmarish, vibrant and alive. This piece began with the depiction of a nuclear family preparing to have a meal. Rather than starting on stage, the family broke bread in front of the stage where a living room set had been constructed. The mother and father figures wore flour sack masks with exaggerated features such as eyelashes and a mustache respectively. Only the child remained unmasked, allowing us into their world in a more intimate manner. Quickly, the child is swept up into a series of nightmares that pull us out of the picture-perfect household. On the stage, the child multiplies into many different versions of themself, represented by four genderqueer, nonbinary, and trans dancers, namely Tor Breen, Maxx Love, Miles Nelson, and Jaqui M. Dugal. In this nightmare, the dancers glide across the stage, catching each other with a bed sheet, capturing silhouetted screams and gasps for air. As the dancers wrestle with the blanket and themselves, we learn that everything was not as peaceful as it seemed. 

This bout of night terrors is followed by a series of solos by the dancers that make up the child. In these solos, each dancer thrashes, jolts, kicks, convulses, punches, and screams, only for the next person to tag them out and add their own visceral response expressing the child’s pain. This is one of the many horror vignettes within “They Were Once,” each more disturbing and violent than the last. These moments were filled with dysphoria and dissociation, moments of beauty and moments of pain interlocked. At one point the four dancers dance a haunting ballet, wearing tutus and flour sack masks. This was one of my favorite choreographic choices made by Dugal, who uses the idealized aesthetics and gender roles of ballet to depict the confines of girlhood to this child. I felt it beautifully depicted transness as something that is free flowing and cannot be contained, no matter how hard external forces try to restrain it. 

There are many moments like this through “They Were Once,” but my favorite moment was the drag number that changed the course of the show. After these nightmares subside, we witness the father slip out of his mask and sing along to the radio. Of course, Shania Twain's iconic “Man, I Feel Like a Woman,” comes on and the four genderqueer dancers return to the stage in full drag. Along with the child’s father, we as an audience watch in pure delight as these dancers flaunt a femininity that feels expansive rather than strict or forced. This drag number, consulted by Maxx Love, who also performed in the piece, was joyful, flirty, and a fantastic surprise after the many dark scenes preceding it. It was a breath of fresh air, and allowed me to tap into trans joy alongside the hardships. 

Throughout the work, there were very strong images. In fact the audience is even invited to eat fruit cake with the cast at the end of the piece, breaking bread together once again in a more lively and warm way. Still, I believe the most pronounced visual was the image of water. From cleansing to drinking to playing, water played a pivotal role in this piece. Dancer Miles Nelson gave a gut-wrenching performance in the filled kiddie pool that was brought on stage. In a terrifying and climactic moment, he drowned a stuffed animal in the pool leading us as audience members to see the duality of the water as a cleansing, nearly baptismal substance, but also one of torture and pain if used in a different way. Through this Dugal asks us to see the multiplicity within ourselves, who we were once, and who we are becoming. 

If you aren’t familiar with Mare Nostrum Elements' Emerging Choreographers’ Series (ECS), you should be! This evening of work was produced as part of the 12th Emerging Choreographers Series in which Mare Nostrum Elements supports up-and-coming choreographers through one-on-one mentorship, making new work, documenting the process, and paying the dancers. This year they brought back five alumni to craft longer works including Jaqui M. Dugal of Mud Movement and Heather Dutton of Middle Child Dance Theatre who created “PLAY DATE.” ECS nurtured these works in a multitude of ways and continues to help emerging choreographers grow their networks and access resources to thrive as artists in NYC and beyond.

Author:
Rush Johnston

Website:
www.rushjohnston.com

Photo Credit:
Josef Pinlac