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Orlando (2002)12 minutes DANCER: ORIGINAL SCORE: Inspired by Virginia Woolf's gender-probing novel Orlando, this dance explores sexuality, transformation, and history. Sperling portrays the sexually-ambiguous protagonist first in his youth as an aristocratic, gallivanting male in the Elizabethan era and then imagines his subsequent transformation into a woman. Among other sources, the movement for the dance draws on galliards (jumping dances) described in Thoinot Arbeau's 1589 Orchésographie. Michelle Ferranti's daring costume highlights the hero/ine's blurring of sexual identity. Quentin Chiappetta's original score features driving percussion rhythms. "As Woolf's gender-shifting hero-heroine, the corseted Sperling dons a jockstrap and makes sure it shows through her bloomers like a codpiece. Sometimes she's tough, lashing the air with a stick, sometimes softer, and sometimes indeterminate as she jumps through a modern equivalent of the Elizabethan galliard. You feel confusion seething, as if her sensibilities were changing in spite of her." –Deborah Jowit, The Village Voice |
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