Queen GodIs pregnant with our future

Multi-talented Queen GodIs, showing an as-yet-untitled work-in-progress at Dance Theater Workshop, taps deep into myth, metaphor and the soul-expressive powers of movement. In her duet with actor Erwin E. A. Thomas, GodIs, known for her hip hop poetry and music, returns to an old love--dance--and passionately weaves movement into her storytelling.

This choreo-poem, directed and choreographed by Nicco Annan and developed through DTW's Studio Series residency, was presented last evening in the David White Studio (and runs again this evening at 7:30). During an informal post-performance Q&A, the small audience explored the work's themes and inquired about various aspects of the creative process.

The piece raises issues of the often-fraught and troubled relationship between Black men and women and calls men to account for sacrificing their true sensitivity for a false sense of power. Beyond those specifics, though, I feel that it holds us all accountable for the right use of our own creative powers, and I am reminded of the well-known quote from the Gnostic Gospels, said to have been spoken by Jesus: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring will save you. If you do not being forth what is within you, what you do not will destroy you."

The point is that not bringing forth the sensitivity and love that is within us also destroys the planet. It is in turning our backs on our own creative, relational roles in the world--whatever those roles may be--that we withdraw and wither, and the result for our partnerships, for our communities and for the well-being of all nations has been dire.

In that respect, GodIs's performance piece is generative and inspirational; how appropriate that her central metaphor is one of pregnancy! GodIs envisions a society in which we are all pregnant with something, and she appears to ask each of us, what are you pregnant with? What are you bringing forth?

In particular, she reminds men of the primal power of words. She will accept the word bitch, for instance, only in its ancient meaning: queen of wolves.

A tall pole, painted red, rises atop a small platform, swathed in gauzy, white fabric, where Thomas portrays GodIs's womb-borne "Sun." GodIs sometimes undulates around that pole like a pole dancer, and I am reminded of the multiplicity of ways in which poles and pole-like objects have blended the sacred and the mundane or profane in the archetypal imagination of the world's peoples. Think of maypoles, an integral symbol of the intercourse between the Great Goddess and her consort at Beltane; or voudou's poteau-mitan, the central post, which unites the heavens and the underworld; or various culture's spiritual symbols of the generative phallus.

GodIs will offer one more showing of this interesting performance--tonight at 7:30pm--but seating is very limited. Call 212-924-0077. Tickets are free with a suggested $5 donation.