Choreographer: Candy Jimenez
Performer: Taylor Dominguez
Dance programs dissipate. It is the ephemeral nature of the art that we can never hold them very long, their impressions fading almost immediately, leaving us, if we’re lucky, with memories of movement in ever-dimming snatches. That being said, Candy Jimenez premiere of Aura of a Mother seems intent on leasing space in my visual cortex.
I’m referring, of course, to the central moment in Taylor Dominguez’ solo performance where she sits, enthroned, on a tiny stage set between the boles of a cluster of trees, while images of the natural world are projected onto her very pregnant bare midriff. From the vantage point of the audience, she herself is the source, at once embodying and projecting our human relationship to the fecundity of nature and the mystery of the universe.
The piece opens with Dominguez kneeling and performing what seems like a ritual washing at a bowl on the periphery. But as she begins her movement into the performance space, the audience is suddenly aware that, despite her slight frame, or in contrast to it, her bare midriff betrays that she is quite pregnant. Amazingly, this doesn’t seem to affect the quality of her movement as she dances through the open space and then effortlessly mounts the small stage.
There, on stage, a formal chair/throne awaits her and she takes her place as the visual projections onto her body begin. Birds in flight, elephants, the cosmos, the undersea world – her body becomes a repository for the universality of life. At various points in the performance she demonstrates an endearing gesture, one arm above, one arm below her pregnancy, embracing and protecting her unborn child. At another point she swings a censor toward the audience like a religious blessing. The entire effect is one of a benevolent earth mother, briefly making her presence felt among us. Not the wizened crone with her dire warnings about our behavior, but the fertile young maiden, bringing a message about the beauty and persistence of life on this world and the mystery beyond.
Projecting images onto the performers is not a unique idea, though it’s always interesting. This, however, is very high concept, and in Aura of a Mother, Jimenez uses that technique to take this performance to a new and profound level. Kudos to dancer Taylor Dominguez for embracing this role with such grace. Calling Aura of a Mother a premiere seems beside the point for a work so specific to this time, this place and this performer that one assumes it could never be mounted again. Which makes it even more important that I allow my memory of this beautiful, thought-provoking moment to linger as long as it possibly can.
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