Two poems, for two distinct pieces performed.
Poem A, which is about the first half of the show. The poem is an ekphrastic, in the most fundamental of approaches: simply describing the work--except to say that the choreographer's description of the opening movement informed the writing. The choreographer, who offered a preview talk, mentioned that one of the dancers underwent a mental struggle during the conception of the piece.
Visually, I wanted a poem that looked like the tension of movement and mood I witnessed in the performance.
Inspired by Companhia Urbana de Dança
This is a dance of madness
twin-souled to distant answer
Squirm and isolation
failing to attract a partner
Hair-knocking crackle and haze.
Electric sweat and
suspense—A man caught in half-
fall the whistle of his
sanity warped.
All the atonal chords
inside him static on the axis.
Limbs gyrating in
defiance.
As a bass drum auto-rifles
the dancer shimmies
between tormented
and restored.
The agony of tensing mid-
rotation.
Losing direction mid-
leap.
Or sits with his back to it all.
Counting on wild braid
double-jointedness
Ear wringing. The gold
of rubber sole.
Imitating as if that
makes it understandable.
Seeing the train headlamp as
sunrise.
Is it night or day? Brain
healing?
Or everything resting on
his head for a break dance?
Sweat popping, eyes cinched
he slumps. Almost combusts.
At last, mercy.
Others enter
his senseless world
Stethoscope the madness
to steady beats.
Diagnosis and cure
occur before curtain fall.
Poem B, which is informed by the second half of the performance. For this one, I focused on the sole female dancer in the company and blended her "visual narrative" with found text: the script of the closing scene of a recent episode of Madame Secretary, titled, "Ships and Countries" (season 6, episode 8). Text from the show is italicized.
Also, I considered the prompt of writing from POV of the chairs--at least, I worked chairs into the piece.
In most of the poems, stories or lyric vignettes I've written so far for Art Wire, I have brought in other, complementary narratives--a process which reflects how the performances at OZ Arts inform how I see events that occur in the week following them.
[one]
In a CBS teleplay
tonight
the first woman
elected president muses
as to why the majority whip
can call the country “she”
but not the president
He said something striking:
After we impeach you the
country will go back
to being the beacon of hope
she’s always been.
[two]
We still assign
ships and countries
female.
Why
is that?
Maybe because they
both carry us like
mothers and if they
go down, we all
go down with them.
[three]
On a warehouse stage
ten hours south of the room where
TV president and her
husband ponder
a woman exits a
ladder-back chair
twirls and stomps
animates every inch
of baby-powdered wood.
For some people
that kind of power is just
too scary in a woman.
[four]
The only female
in an urban dance company
She’s yet to sit on
bent wood. Nail head.
Anything reupholstered.
Yet to enter the rotted oak of
a long-ago summer when.
[five]
They can deal with she
in the abstract but
not in a leader.
Our Mother
who art a
Chair.
Plane.
Lighthouse.
Stage.
Ship.
Country.
But not a president.
[six]
The choreographer gives
the woman the spotlight.
Eleven men to support.
Chairs as props. Full of
travels, stories, years of
wear.
Shouts to her,
Hit your hallelujah!
Zils for fingertips
she ascends, arms A-line whooshing.
[seven]
They’re never gonna make
room for me,
are they?
Not all of them,
Madame President.
Not yet.
