Courtesy of Roch Doran (left to right) World Arts and
Culture students Kristen Smiarowski, Laurah Klepinger (sitting),
Paulina Sahagun (standing), Shyamala Moorti, and Jack Kirven will
perform "Carve Something Straight" Friday night in Kaufman
Hall.
By Andrea Dingman
Daily Bruin Contributor
Carve something straight. Color within the lines. Get in single
file. Conform.
In an ideal world, following directives such as these would be
an easy task; however, human will doesn’t often comply with
the simple rules.
This paradox is explored in the dance concert “Carve
Something Straight,” presented this weekend by five graduate
students in the World Arts and Cultures department.
The title is derived from a quote by philosopher Immanuel Kant,
who speaks of “the crooked timber of humanity from which you
can never carve anything entirely straight.” This quote
refers to how multiple meanings can be found in any performance.
“Carve Something Straight” acknowledges that there will
not be a unanimous reaction to the pieces.
Choreographers Jack Kirven, Laurah Klepinger, Kristen
Smiarowski, Shyamala Moorty and Paulina Sahagun hope to prove Kant
right through their respective works.
The impossibly strict nature of gender roles is tackled by
Kirven in his two pieces, “Bull” and
“daddy.” Kirven studied dance and French as an
undergraduate student at Coker College in his native South
Carolina
“Bull” deals with issues of masculinity. Kirven, a
self-professed “queer theorist,” mocks American notions
of masculinity with modern dance informed by his previous training
in gymnastics and hip hop.
The piece is an excerpt from a full-length work built off of the
Greek myth of Theseus, a young man who enters a labyrinth to fight
a monstrous minotaur.
“It’s a study of gender performative,” Kirven
explained. “It’s really making fun of
masculinity.”
“Daddy” is derived from Kirven’s relationship
with his dad, who is not the same person as his father.
“Yeah, my mother was married seven times so my father is
not my dad,” said Kirven. “He is the person that the
piece is about.”
Kirven said that his work is a bit of a joke on the show’s
theme.
“It’s a double entendre in a way because it’s
not straight; it’s making fun of straight,” Kirven
said. “I’m more at the opposite end of
straight.”
Laurah Klepinger’s piece, “A Thesis-Sized Hole in
the Universe,” comments on her dual life as a theorist and
artist: Klepinger is currently completing both an MA in dance
theory and an MFA in choreography. The combination, said Klepinger,
is not as helpful as some might assume.
“My theoretical background has put a damper on my own
creative freedom of choice,” she explained.
“Thesis” is essentially about the breakup of a
romantic relationship, which Klepinger uses as a metaphor for the
inability to reconcile theory and practice.
In keeping with this theme, Klepinger will interrupt her own
performance to look at it from an objective, theoretical
perspective.
“Thesis” defies the command to carve something
straight, as Klepinger challenges the dominant view of this
practice and theory and exposes different interpretations of the
clash.
“It’s a directive,” Klepinger said.
“We’re asking the audience to do something with it, not
just asking but directing them to.”
Kristin Smiarowski’s piece, “Because the Day Was
Sunny,” reflects her interests in music, psychology and dance
in telling the story of a terrorist attack on a bus.
The inspiration for the work came in part from the time she
spent living in Israel. Rather than merely reporting about the
account as the evening news would, Smiarowski looks at the
individuals effected by the tragedy and how they ended up
there.
“(I) detailed the reasons they were in the place they were
in, so that it is combining this violent, terrible thing that
happens to them but also the simple, ordinary, mundane reasons that
they got on a bus that day,” she said.
“Sunny” is a solo piece, with Smiarowski playing the
parts of narrator, passengers and even the bomb. Her multiple roles
bring different perspectives to the piece, ranging from an
objective news story recount to a tragically personal
remembrance.
While she is slightly secretive about the title’s
significance, Smiarowski explained its significance lies in the
mundaneness of the day of the bomb.
“Sunny” is also impossible to carve straight in the
sense that the participants, observers and villains all see the
attack from a different angle. Smiarowski, however, does believe in
the possibility of audience members finding clarity in the
piece.
“I think with really successful performance pieces, they
just have this clarity to them,” Smiarowski said.
“It’s almost like a moving painting.”
Also in “Carve Something Straight” are two pieces by
Shyamala Moorty, “Balance of Being” and “Like
Mother, Like Daughter?” and one piece by Paulina Sahagun,
“Local Loca.”
In “Balance of Being,” Moorty divides herself down
the center, using half of her body to dance ballet and the other to
dance the Indian Bharatanatyam dance.
“Like Mother, Like Daughter?” explores the
relationship between a mother and her mixed-race daughter.
Sahagun’s “Local Loca” tells the story of a
girl with an identity crisis living in an asylum, employing masks,
physical comedy and narrative.
While the choreographers deal with very different material, they
are all united in their resistance to being pinned down to one
meaning.
“I have this curiosity, seeing the concert and figuring
out where the dots will connect and how the line will be carved,
how the connections will be made,” Smiarowski said.
DANCE: “Carve Something Straight”
will be presented at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday in Kaufman Hall
200. Admission is free.