What: Bronx Gothic
When: 8-12 October
Where: Arts House, NMTH
Written and performed by: Okwui
Okpokwasili
Directed and designed by: Peter Born
Bronx Gothic
hurts. It stabs and tears and rends at
our humanity until we are all left in pieces, just like the little 11 year old
girl standing next to Okpokwasili who is alone on stage.
Bronx Gothic is
a part of the ‘New York Narratives’ which form a part of this year’s Melbourne
Festival and it is being performed at Arts House over the next four days. Go and see it.
Part
of me wants to just leave this review at that because nothing I write will come
close to what you will experience at the hands of Okpokwasili and Born. The title is somewhat self-evident.
Okpokwasili is African American and lives in New York City.
Labelling
the work ‘Bronx’ is important because in New York the five burroughs
(Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Statten Island) all have very
different dominant socio-economic demographics and The Bronx is the ‘poor,
black’ neighbourhood.
We
know this story before it even begins.
We have seen it countless times in many iterations on TV and in
films. There is no cultural translation
needed given the dominance of American culture on our TVs and in our cinemas.
The ‘Gothic’
part of the title is a way for us to understand and read the work. Okpokwasili supposedly leant very heavily on
the mores of Victorian Gothic novels in creating this work. Whilst I can see
the influence of the Bronte sisters and Mary Shelley, I actually think this
work is perhaps too real for that.
To
me it feels like it lies more strongly in the surrealist/cubist continuum.
There is an immediacy and truthful cry of pain that is much more reminiscent of
early 20th century industrialisation than the romantic melodrama of
Wuthering Heights.
Perhaps
this comes from the griot tradition on which Okpokwasili also leans on. Griot
is the term used for West African historian/storytellers. As well as knowing
tradition faultlessly, the griot is up to date on all current events and can
extemporise with a biting wit.
You
may think this is all sounding very academic and intellectual, but in some ways
it will help to understand the devices in play.
I could go on to talk about the references to Plato’s cave, etc., but in
the end, and despite all of this intellectualising, the true effect of Bronx
Gothic is visceral to the core.
The
piece seems to have three overt sections.
The first is pure dance and after 5 minutes I was totally engrossed and
was not able to look away until the very end of the hour and half. The second
is reading text, and the third is blended action, reaction, soliloquy, and
interpretation.
Okpokwasili’s
choreography is genius. The way she
weaves all of the parts of the story into her shuddering, spasmodic body right
from the start and just leaves them there in your mind to be read as the rest
of the performance connects the dots is phenomenal.
Working
with her and in perfect unison is Born’s set and lighting, as well as the
immaculate sound design created by the two of them. The ongoing subtle shifts between internality
and externality, between now and then, between woman and man, between ancient
and contemporary, between tradition and pop are just awe inspiring and done
with the deft touch of perfection.
The
entire dance ‘section’ is about birth, growth, immersion, control, fear, and
ecstasy. It is about being human in a
world that is so much bigger than us all and in a mass of humanity that is
overwhelming. We are led, driven, tranced into that very moment of feeling
overwhelmed – we live the moment of being caught in a pair of headlights and
frozen in place.
One
of the reasons I talked earlier about surrealism and cubism, is that in many
ways this piece is about every moment pointing to a single point of visceral
experience – think ‘The Scream’. I
referred to cubism because the show has narrative, but it is non-linear.
It
looks at every single way a girl/woman lives around this single moment.
Everything forever is about and around an experience, and yet we never quite
touch the moment directly and clearly.
Well,
that’s not true. In the dance we do, but
we have to join the dots because Okpokwasili is not going to give us the
answers, she is just painting the picture. She is the scream and we never stop
hearing it.
Bronx Gothic is
a woman’s story, but it is every woman’s story at the same time. There was once a girl, there were once many
girls, there was once every girl, there was once a girl…
5
Stars
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