PS #14: Lost in Translation?

A number of recent Philly performances have brought up questions about what happens when you take a dance form originally seen on the street, in a cafe or in the fields onto a proscenium stage.  “Staged spectacles” of indigenous dance forms have been on the scene for ages now but we still might long for the “real thing.” Similarly, when a piece was site specific and is staged in a different space, how much gets lost? What have you seen that falls in one of these categories and how did you feel about the “translation”?

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Chloe Marie Newton, a black female dancer wearing a gauzy dark blue tank and Helen Hale, a white female dancer with a long brown ponytail wearing shimmery silver, sit on a light grey marley floor, reclined on one hip with knees gently stacked and one arm intertwined with the other, reaching upwards. They have their backs to us and around and beyond them, we can see pale, cool-toned, sheer fabric. Through and beyond the fabric, we see a row of shadowy-figured audience members, seated and wearing headphones that emit a blue glow.
Photo: Johanna Austin