Another good year of Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat. ODC Theater. 6/15/07.

Fresh Meat once again delivers a fabulous collection of performances by transgender artists. The show was well organized (except for the obnoxious bit where they sold out, had a huge line, and started the show about 15 minutes late) and, for once, didn't feel too long. It was heavily dance-focused with performance of Afro-Colombian dance by Columbian Soul, aerial acrobatics by Michael Chernus-Goldstein, and hip hop by Freeplay Dance Crew in addition to an extensive new piece entitled "Bully" by the festival's artistic director, Sean Dorsey. In the realm of music, the fabulous Shawna Virago performed delightfully provokative rock 'n' roll and Triple Threat Taiko were adorable and extremely powerful. But I'll focus on the performance art/theater type pieces, since that's what I know best.

I was impressed by Imani's Henry's performance of single monologue that was an excerpt from a larger work about slavery. I believe it's a scene from "Living in the Light" but I seem to have misplaced my program during the trip home from San Francisco, so the information I have is less accurate than it should be. The piece Henry performed was beautifully self-contained and coherent, while opening up to and suggesting the longer work. In it, he referenced himself as trans briefly by talking about himself as a young black girl, but that was in no way the focus of the performance. The excerpt was intellectually dense and engaging and definitely made me want to see the Henry's whole show.

ryka aoki de la cruz debuted a new piece of performance art called "≤1" (less than or equal to one). It was a piece that I look forward to seeing ryka perform again - it was intensly emotional and complex and funny at times and I think it will evolve in performance in good ways.

Sean Dorsey's "Bully" may have been the highlight of the evening for me. It's a lovely, poignant new work about bullying and queer friendship that will eventually be performed as part of a longer work called Untold Stories. Dorsey performs this piece with two other men, which I found interesting because I had only seen him partnering with women before. His work continues to employ lifts and mirroring to eloquently express the ways that people interact. The bullying felt most violent and violating to me in one moment that the dancer playing the bully character touched Dorsey's chest and hips, drawing attention to the feminine parts of Dorsey's masculine body. While the narrative of the piece describes much more dangerous violence, it was this move early in the performance that emphasized the sense of physical violation created by bullying for me. Dorsey's combination of music, choreography, and narrative continues to impress and engage me and I highly recommend this powerful work.

Overall, I had a highly entertaining evening at Fresh Meat, and I'm very glad I attended. Look for more great work by all of these artists throughout the year.