{"id":18593,"date":"2017-02-17T13:52:14","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T18:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=18593"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:35:36","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:35:36","slug":"rooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=18593","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Rooms: A Dance Drama\u2019 explores issues of gender, race, identity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The piece “Yes,” which opens the “Rooms: A Dance Drama” performance, is about the complicated relationships that women have with one another — sometimes helping each other and sometimes acting against each other. (photo by Kristen Chavez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ayana King stands at the front of the stage holding a shiny metal bucket in each arm as the voice of the late singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone \u2014 the \u201cHigh Priestess of Soul\u201d \u2014 croons from a nearby laptop:<\/p>\n

Why you wanna fly Blackbird?<\/em><\/p>\n

You ain\u2019t ever gonna fly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why you wanna fly Blackbird?<\/em><\/p>\n

You ain\u2019t ever gonna fly. <\/em><\/p>\n

As the drum beat pulses, Livian Kennedy, Savannah Lammers and Bryar Loftfield enter stage left and lift King in the air as they practice for \u201cRooms: A Dance Drama\u201d (Feb. 23-27), a Kenan Theatre Company<\/a> production. Three weeks into rehearsals, set pieces are being built around them. Skinny crepe myrtle branches stretch toward the ceiling. Window-like squares hang from the rafters, casting shadows onto the back wall.<\/p>\n

\""Rooms"
“Rooms” uses movement, music and text to explore issues at the intersection of gender, race and identity, in particular issues facing women. (photo by Kristen Chavez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s run the whole thing from the beginning,\u201d says Heather Tatreau, a lecturer in exercise and sport science<\/a> in the College of Arts & Sciences and a modern dance choreographer who is putting together the production. \u201cRemember the whole idea here is women are taking back power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRooms\u201d uses movement, music and text to explore issues at the intersection of gender, race and identity, in particular, \u201chow can women\u2019s lost histories be given a voice to empower future generations?\u201d according to Tatreau. On this night, a small group of dancers rehearses just one piece in the show. The feature-length production will use 10 women and five men.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis represents women taking ownership of where they stand and who they are,\u201d said Kennedy, a sophomore dramatic art and studio art major. \u201cIn this piece, Ayana is our Nina Simone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last fall, Kennedy was part of Tatreau\u2019s dramatic art class, \u201cMovement for the Actor II,\u201d which laid the groundwork for the spring production through intensive research by the students. Tatreau (psychology and women\u2019s studies \u201998) said she has always had an appreciation for feminist literature and women and their creative process. The dance drama will incorporate poetry, excerpts from short stories and a dose of feminist theory; post-show discussions each night will explore the production\u2019s themes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have also been times in our history when feminist theory has been very exclusionary of races other than white, so we\u2019re taking a look in \u2018Rooms\u2019 at intersectionality \u2014 how do people, gender, race, class and all the things that categorize people connect?\u201d she said. \u201cAnd can we use the writings of feminists Simone de Beauvoir and bell hooks, for example, and bring those ideas to speak to the next generation?\u201d<\/p>\n

At a break in the rehearsal, the dancers share their thoughts on the relevance of the themes in today\u2019s political climate. For King, a sophomore exercise and sport science major who admits she\u2019s not very talkative, \u201cdance gives me the voice I don\u2019t often use.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one piece, Tatreau has students tell stories of their mothers and grandmothers expressing creativity at a time when it was perhaps more difficult to do so.<\/p>\n

\"Choreographer
Choreographer Heather Tatreau, an exercise and sport science lecturer, encourages students to dance “big” and fill the performance space. (photo by Kristen Chavez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThey are finding ways that women in their families may have fought the norm, like \u2018I am from \u2026 wearing pants in the 1920s,\u2019 for instance. These are little slices of resistance that this generation can learn from and realize they have more of a voice today,\u201d Tatreau said.<\/p>\n

Tatreau received a UNC Performing Arts Special Activities Fund<\/a> grant to incorporate a piece choreographed by one of her former students \u2014 Jade Poteat, a 2014 psychology major and women\u2019s and gender studies minor \u2014 into the production. Poteat now works for UNC\u2019s Center for Developmental Science.<\/p>\n

When she was a senior at Carolina, Poteat created a piece for the student group Modernextension Dance Company<\/a> based on feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman\u2019s short story The Yellow Wallpaper.<\/em> Confined to her room, the mentally ill woman becomes obsessed with the room\u2019s wallpaper. Poteat\u2019s piece uses dance, narration and music. Wooden pallets stacked vertically on wheels and draped in yellow cloth will serve as moveable walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time I was also taking a course about art and activism with associate professor of women\u2019s and gender studies Tanya Shields,<\/a> who helped me think about the idea of intersectional feminism and how I could incorporate women of color and their experiences with mental health institutions,\u201d Poteat said.<\/p>\n

Tatreau said \u201cRooms\u201d was inspired by Virginia Woolf\u2019s A Room of One\u2019s Own<\/em> and the idea that women need a space of their own to be creative. But the performance\u2019s title has taken on multiple meanings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are also a lot of texts with rooms meant as confinement, as illustrated in Jade\u2019s piece, where women had to stay in the interior of the house without the freedom to go out into the world. And even beyond that, this production is not about one type of woman, it\u2019s a peek into the different rooms of women\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRooms: A Dance Drama\u201d runs Feb. 23-26 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 27 at 5:30 p.m. in the Kenan Theatre of the Center for Dramatic Art on Country Club Road.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Story Kim Spurr \u201988, College of Arts & Sciences; photos by Kristen Chavez ’13
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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