Inspired by the writings and paintings of surrealists Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington and Leonora Fini, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik integrates dance, visual design and libretto in an hour long fantasy journey through the dark heart of relationships. Gender and sexuality are fluid and muteable.
"While the surface of these incidents has an absurdist humor, there's always a murky undertow. The figures of Josa-Jones' nightmare are walking wounded. Sexual behavior here goes beyond the constant groping embraces or pairing off on the black metal bed. In this landscape, no interaction is safe from sexual demands, no relationship anything but devouring." The Boston Globe
"A regiment of seven dancers lean hard into crutches, then splay them so wide their bodies splat like posts between crossbars. Dangling from the device's armpit pads, the performers hover in split-legged leaps. A black-cloaked choir growl, bark out snippets of words in a Babel of languages, lean right and laugh uproariously, chatter on the phone, sneeze en masse, then cut to silence when their conductors hand slashes the air. Clumped, they follow his every move like prisoners shackled together by ball and chain. Subjects cum icons abound: heads of garlic, a bird cage, a potted plant, men in half slips and girdles, women in tuxedo jackets, a bed covered with clothes.
Josa-Jones strong yet delicately nuanced dancers give lushness and, surprisingly, humor to her dense and often troubling works. . . . chilling visions that ride the thin line between the very beautiful and the macabre." The Boston Phoenix
photos by Nick Novick
photo by Nick Novick
photo by Nick Novick
photo by Pam White
photo by Nick Novick