thINKingDANCE

Donate
Photo: Unknown
Photo: Unknown

Empty Vessels

Whitney Weinstein

The Oven is a Baltimore-based theater company committed to developing and performing socially relevant work. Their 2016 Fringe show, COMMODITIES, tackles the difficult subject of sex slavery bolstered with substantial academic and experiential research.

The Oven’s actors embody trauma in ways that educate us as viewers. Their work highlights the bond we can share as people fighting psycho-emotional disturbances. COMMODITIES is an intimate hour of storytelling and emotional vulnerability that humanized otherwise stereotypical images of men and women labeled as prostitutes.

The set, which consisted of five rectangular panels, framed each seated actor within a corridor of isolation. The five actors muttered softly, voicing internal monologues which gradually built in intensity and volume. They posed erotically – and stared absently. At times, they retreated from their sexualized roles into slumped postures with crossed arms.

The actors created deeply compelling character portraits by combining the histories of trafficking victims and their own personal traumas. Locking eyes with one performer, I felt a profound connection – a connection that triggered a real sense of responsibility to the people caught up in this horrific circumstance.

As COMMODITIES neared its end, the character LaDawn stripped out of her heels, her dress, her cross necklace. She sat limply with a trash bag over her head, knees knocked, in a hot pink nightgown. The other characters created a cacophony of sound with their echoing cries as LaDawn sat motionless: Just a body. Waiting.

As an ensemble, The Oven explores trauma that lives in the body. They moved with a vocabulary that expressed the fear, desperation and longing of the trafficking victims.

The characters spoke to themselves again, this time murmuring consolation that their bodies may be used for the benefit of someone else, but their minds remain their own. I wondered silently while they muttered aloud. Had their minds indeed been appropriated, just as their bodies had?

COMMODITIES, The Oven, Asian Arts Initiative, September 13, 23-24, http://fringearts.com/event/commodities-7/

Share this article

Whitney

Whitney Weinstein

Whitney H. Weinstein is a dance educator, choreographer, writer, and professional mover. She is an editor and staff writer with thINKingDANCE. Learn more.

PARTNER CONTENT

Keep Reading

  • Reviews

Shadow Cities: Weaving Histories Through Motion, Music, and Light

Emily “Lady Em” Culbreath

Ephrat Asherie Dance, Arturo O’Farrill, and Kathy Kaufmann take audiences on an exhilarating journey of blurring artistic boundaries.

Four performers share a stage lit in deep blue and purple tones. On the left, a musician sits at a drum kit, focused on his instrument, microphones hanging overhead. At center, another performer is captured mid-jump, arms extended overhead and feet dangle above the floor, as if suspended in motion. Beside him, a musician stands playing an upright bass, leaning slightly into the instrument. A small, moveable stage light sits on the floor in front of him. On the far right, a dancer bends forward in a dynamic pose, one arm reaching back and the other curved in front of her, suggesting swift, expressive movement.
  • Interviews, thINKpieces

The Leaders Behind the Headlines: Conversations with the Kennedy Center’s [Terminated] Dance Programming Team

Ashayla Byrd

What happens when political agendas take precedence over a nation’s desire to feel seen and supported in artistic spaces?

A group of five individuals, dressed in business attire, all gather together for a selfie in the velvet-carpeted lobby of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Jane, at the front left, is a white, brunette woman with a medium pixie cut. Clad in a magenta blazer and black turtleneck, Jane dons a bright, bespectacled smile. Grinning behind Jane, Mallory, a white woman with dirty blonde hair, wears a black and white gingham dress and holds a silver clasp. Malik, a tawny-skinned Black man in a black button-down and trousers, stands beaming at Mallory’s left. Allison and Chloe, dressed in a white button-down and a floral dress respectively, lean into the photo, offering their smiles as well.
Photo courtesy of Ashayla Byrd