Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

A re­view by

Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

Anne Bon­ny and El­ma Fran­cois, Hulsie Bhag­gan and Bubalups (yes, Bubalups), Hazel Brown and Beryl McBurnie: these names, and the names of oth­er pow­er­ful, per­ceiv­ably dif­fi­cult women, were shout­ed in­to the au­di­ence of the Big Black Box on No­vem­ber 29. This tri­umphant, pu­gna­cious bat­tle cry of women fight­ers, tak­en up by women dancers, helped set the stage for Con­tin­u­um Dance Project's tenth an­niver­sary pro­duc­tion, The Mu­se­um of Dif­fi­cult Women, pre­sent­ed be­neath the artis­tic di­rec­tion of Son­ja Du­mas.

Led by their racon­teuse and fel­low dancer Char­lene Rol­lock, the evening's eight dif­fi­cult danc­ing women were Ab­by Charles, Deliece Knights, El­isha Bar­tels, Joan­na Charles-Fran­cis, Lisa Be­har­ry-Gift, Louan­na Mar­tin and Nico­la John­ston. The con­cept they strove to il­lu­mi­nate and en­act in phys­i­cal, tac­tile space, was in­spired by the po­em For Women who are Dif­fi­cult to Love, by British-So­ma­li po­et Warsan Shire.

Women who do not cleave to the un­der­stood, Caribbean-so­ci­ety-struc­tured straight and nar­row of­ten find that they must run even more per­sis­tent­ly un­fair gauntlets than their more docile, dif­fi­dent sis­ters. Du­mas drew deep from the sep­a­rate, in­ter­lock­ing wells of mul­ti­ple sym­bol­isms to as­sure that this com­plex­i­ty was made vis­i­ble.

It was there­fore a boon that the cre­ative arc of the night's pre­sen­ta­tion, in her guid­ing hands, was not con­tent to be mere­ly as­sim­i­lat­ed–Du­mas chal­lenged her au­di­ence, forc­ing their gazes in­ward, as much as to­wards the lit prosce­ni­um.

Dress and or­na­men­ta­tion, cu­rat­ed by Si­mone Phillips, played a crit­i­cal role in de­vel­op­ing Du­mas' over­ar­ch­ing mo­tif of the woman who can­not be re­strained, yet chafes against un­fair yokes in her work, art, and love lives. Be­gin­ning the per­for­mance all clad in white frocks and suits, each dancer strode to the Big Black Box stage in tow­er­ing heels: some plat­form-wedged, some in glit­ter­ing sil­ver, much in the vein of the Wicked Witch of the East (her­self, per­haps, a dif­fi­cult woman felled by fate).

Af­ter the pro­nounce­ment of their rebel-hero­ines' names, each Dif­fi­cult Woman dancer tore off her op­pres­sive footwear. The ma­jor­i­ty of the night's danc­ing was con­duct­ed bare­foot, or else in bold­ly-coloured Con­verse, an ob­vi­ous state­ment to­wards claim­ing the un­fair­ly-al­lot­ted tools of the pa­tri­archy–as well as a de­c­la­ra­tion in re-es­tab­lish­ing pri­mal, pos­si­bly an­ces­tral space.

The shift from os­ten­si­bly "pure" white cos­tumes to colour­ful cut-off jeans, tank tops and ruched blous­es sig­nalled a shift in dy­nam­ic and in­ten­tion: a de­mar­ca­tion be­tween move­ments. The evening's first act sym­bol­ised danc­ing as an act of re­sis­tance against hege­mon­ic mock­ery, in­clud­ing the first song of the per­for­mance set list, Roar­ing Li­on's 1933 ca­lyp­so sta­ple, Ug­ly Woman.

In the sec­ond act, the Mu­se­um's un­bowed ladies turned their at­ten­tions to the fu­ture, mak­ing lit­er­al leaps and bounds across the stage: these moves were not im­mune to a sub­tle, chore­o­graphed un­ease. The jit­tery hob­ble of the work­ing woman was more than idly sug­gest­ed, as well as the bold pos­tur­ing of the woman whose af­fec­tions are re­put­ed to be eas­i­ly bought.

The dancers utilised more than the tra­di­tion­al­ly de­mar­cat­ed space we tend to call "stage." All of the Big Black Box, in­clud­ing the au­di­ence's seat­ing area, be­came the dancers' do­main. The use of the en­tire venue as an in­ter­ac­tive, spon­ta­neous­ly change­able au­di­to­ri­um was in­spired, if oc­ca­sion­al­ly hap­haz­ard in its lit­er­al ex­e­cu­tion.

Light­ing de­sign­ers and op­er­a­tors Rene Tam Wing and Cur­tis Bachan used flood­lights and spot­lights with vig­or­ous ac­cu­ra­cy. They bathed cer­tain, dra­mat­i­cal­ly cru­cial dance en­sem­bles in a full back­drop of red mood lights, and ac­cen­tu­at­ed the so­lo per­for­mances of the Dif­fi­cult Women with white beam pro­jec­tion spot­lights.

Sound man­age­ment, over­seen by Maarten Man­mo­han, in­clud­ed the phys­i­cal in­stal­la­tion of a live band (Aaron Low Chew Tung, Aman­da Man­mo­han, Fran­cois Hare­wood, Pe­ter Telfer) to the im­me­di­ate left of the au­di­ence seat­ing. The in­ter­mit­tent dis­trac­tions this in­evitably pro­duced could be con­sid­ered part of the pos­i­tive spir­it of com­plex in­ter­pre­ta­tion that Du­mas sought.

Host­ing both sound and move­ment with over­lap­ping, in­ti­mate ef­fect served to height­en the im­me­di­a­cy of the Mu­se­um's sen­so­ry ap­peal. That the sen­so­ry in­ter­ac­tion of­ten lent it­self to over­load sta­tus seemed to be with­in Du­mas' aims.

In­di­vid­ual dancers, com­mand­ing the stage–and the off-stage amp­ithe­atre sug­gest­ed by the Big Black Box–gen­er­at­ed a more vis­cer­al emo­tion­al re­sponse than the troupe of dancers work­ing as a team.

Louan­na Mar­tin's syn­co­pat­ed foot-stomp­ing, hand-clap­ping in­vo­ca­tion, which in­cor­po­rat­ed a spo­ken nar­ra­tive of both a woman's vic­tim­hood and the op­pres­sions she faces, was a stun­ning com­po­si­tion of rage, grief and re­sis­tance. Lisa Be­har­ry-Gift's man­i­fes­ta­tion of a "Wa­ter Woman" de­ity, in a flow­ing, sheer and blue-striped gauze skirt with an im­mense train (de­signed by Bene Caribe) sug­gest­ed a se­ries of liq­uid-im­mersed un­du­la­tions in her move­ments. Dur­ing her time on stage in this Ma­ma D'Leau em­bod­i­ment, she chan­nelled con­no­ta­tions of woman's mal­leabil­i­ty, and of the pur­pose­ful strides women make in shap­ing guid­ing the course of their own voy­ages, amidst the in­ces­sant rag­ing of life's rivers.

Free­dom fight­ers, whistle­blow­ers, in­sur­rec­tion­ists and volup­tuous queens of the dance­hall–Son­ja Du­mas and her Mu­se­um of Dif­fi­cult Women en­deav­oured to show that if you're a woman, you have ac­cess to fierce­ness and pur­pose, no mat­ter the means through which you claim them.

?The Mu­se­um of Dif­fi­cult Women

Con­tin­u­um Dance Project, Di­rect­ed by Son­ja Du­mas

The Big Black Box, No­vem­ber 29