Sweet, old-fashioned girls...not!

Courtney Jo Drasner and Janessa Clark
of Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX
(photo by Alexandra Albrecht)

There's deliberate, unsettling tension in (inner)views I-VII, a piece by choreographer Janessa Clark of the Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX troupe. With its juxtaposition of erotic live movement and engaging video interviews, its trampling of the fourth wall, it forces you, gentle viewer, to think about your place as a reactive/creative mind taking in or making up information that lurches between honesty and theatrical manipulation.

Clark has worked this provocative piece for several years. I first saw it last summer at Dixon Place's Hot! Festival where it was a duet between Clark and Courtney Jo Drasner (see my review of that work-in-progress here). The finished, evening-length version--featuring Clark, Drasner and Alexandra Albrecht--took its world premiere bow in this year's festival at DP's new Chrystie Street location. Last night, after a few technical snafus, it completed that run.

(inner)views I-VII highlights what people tend to imagine about lesbians and how seven real-life lesbian interviewees--so real, I actually know two of them--view themselves, their sexuality, their life stories and daily challenges within homophobic society.

The dancers place live, soft-core girly action right in front of you. (For those of you who have yet to visit the new Dixon Place theater, that would still be pretty much right in front of you, and one embarrassed person even gets a brief lap dance.) You're occasionally asked what you think of what you're looking at, how you feel about it, how you might arrange things differently. I don't remember as much audience-tugging in last year's show, and it now feels a bit forced, muddling Clark's obvious point: When we encounter the Other--whether it be a person different in race, gender, sexual orientation or what have you, say, a woman in hijab on the subway or Henry Louis Gates, Jr. struggling to open his own front door--what's flickering across the sooty cave walls of our minds usually conflicts with reality.

Well, yeah, Prof. Gates, I guess some folks still need to hear this.

I still value the way (inner)views I-VII spurs us to wonder just how it could be that lesbians who share their stories with us, interviewed and presented through the two-dimensional medium of film, turn out to be even more palpable than a trio of babes that we could actually reach out and touch if we dared. And, as I wrote in my 2008 review, when it comes down to it, who would we rather watch and get to know?

Very nice work by Ganessa James, guitarist and singer-songwriter. Her warm, supple and vibrant voice brought Tracy Chapman, Joan Armatrading and Lizz Wright to mind as she provided live original music prior to and during the piece.

In good kilter

I've admired Janessa Clark and Courtney Jo Drasner's vibrant and smart performances with Gina Gibney Dance but had never seen Clark's own choreography prior to last night's presentation by Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX, part of the queer-forward HOT! Festival at Dixon Place.

Clark and Drasner--two stunningly beautiful women--performed part of a 2006 duet called (inner)views I–IV, in which they prowled DP's living room space dressed and preening like go-go girls, wriggling their tongues at us, toying with themselves and each other, and embodying the straight-male fantasy of what it means to be a lesbian. Why, they were close enough for a lap dance and, at one point, Clark bent down and gave one woman in a front seat a lingering smooch.

With bodies espressly for display, the two supercharged Barbie dolls engaged in rapidfire sensual interactions that were the rough equivalent of stuffing your mouth with as much candy as possible and downing it in one gulp. While they were at it, a video showed real-life dykes talking about their real lives. (One of them so real, I know her--an old friend I haven't seen in what must be years.) Their remarks about experiences of coming out or being targeted by homophobes, of self-determined identity and assured self-regard are intimate and reveal humanity and vulnerability. Clark's on to something, I think, since she diverts our attention from the hotties with this video and, often--at least for me--the video won.

Ask yourself: What would you rather watch? Yes, the dancers are hot. (And how often does most contemporary dance let itself get away with that without politely covering up the fact that watching any dancer express him/herself via the body is...um...inherently voyeuristic?) But the women in the video are appealing. They're probably more like yourself, even if you're not female. Maybe even if you're a straight male...an honest one. So that's where your eyes go. Funny, isn't it?