For many, connecting to cultural or religious roots means traveling to the homeland, learning traditions or celebrating holidays. Rebecca Pappas, however, reconciled her uncertain connection to her Jewish roots through dance.
A third-year MFA dance student with an emphasis on choreography, Pappas has been working on the choreography for her thesis concert “Monster” since September. It is the third part in a series she began in December 2006.
The 45-minute long performance, showing this Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m. in the Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater, was made possible by the support of the UCLA/Mellon Program on the Holocaust in American and World Culture and the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, and explores the nature of the body, touching upon such themes as tragedy and the Jewish identity.
“There’s part of the exploration that goes into some really negative places, and I think that’s probably stuff that I’ve been carrying around for a long time,” said Pappas, who choreographed the show. “I think that the positive thing is that I’ve connected with a lot of really great Jewish communities.”
One thing Pappas has been carrying around for a long time is her frustration with the fact that she is often presumed to be Jewish by people who do not know her background, simply because they think she looks Jewish. She is only half-Jewish and was raised in a Christian church.
The process of making “Monster” has helped to reconcile this discontent with others’ perception of her, she said.
“This whole feeling of the way I feel uncomfortable about being Jewish, it’s also brought up a lot of ways of how I feel good about being Jewish,” she said. “There’s a way where I feel like I’ve worked this out. It doesn’t feel like it’s an issue anymore.”
The research process also brought Pappas closer to her Jewish roots and inspired her to address it in her dance. She traveled to Israel, performed with Israeli dancers and took a class on Jewish nationalism.
“There are so many ultrapositive parts of Jewish culture,” she said. “People have been open to having this discussion with me. … There’s a huge emphasis on debate and discussion and dissension and the airing of ideas, and that’s something that I think is amazing.”
Pappas describes the movement as theatrical, with a lot of shape-shifting, abstract movement, falling and flailing. The gestures reflect what Pappas sees as the brutality of Israel’s history and as the various bodies that humans possess. The title “Monster” has to do with the idea of victimizers versus the victimized, and the fantastical nature of the performance. Pappas held auditions to find the four performers in the piece and at the time did not know what exactly she wanted to address besides larger themes of Israel, history, monsters and shameful experiences.
“I still feel like I’m figuring out the meaning. And I feel like it takes me a long time to figure out the meaning. Before knowing the meaning at the beginning, I knew that constellation of ideas that I (wanted) to think about.”
The physical dance will be accompanied by an ambient musical score by New York-based musician Anthony Gatto, and lighting design by Christopher Kuhl.
“One of the things that (Rebecca) is interested in is movement innovation, not just relying on a typical modern dance vocabulary, but also trying to formulate new things that are matched with the things she is interested in exploring,” said one of the performers, Harmony Bench, a sixth-year Ph.D. student in the program.
Bench describes the dance movement as very tense, hot, uncontrollable and uncontainable.
“This work in particular, the themes that it explores, are tough to swallow in some ways … so the audiences aren’t necessarily sure how to respond because it takes time to think through what is being presented,” Bench said.
Pappas agrees that there is a certain controversial quality to her piece, considering that it comments on the brutality of Israel’s history, how the Holocaust led to the creation of Israel and brutal acts that the state of Israel has committed.
“It’s pretty dark overall. … I would say it’s controversial. I would say I don’t feel entirely comfortable with that. But I think that’s true.”
Ever since she was a child, Pappas dreamed of being a dancer. Choreography is her way of “getting to control that moment and make a really special space on the stage,” she said.
“I think dance, out of every other thing we could choose to do with our body, gives us the chance to really allow (the) body to have this huge range of experience and to explore the world body first.”