Person(a), a Dance Performance that Confronts our Digital Selves

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Jan 23

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We desire to be real. We want to feel alive, whether through pain, pleasure, or love. Yet we invite so much into our lives that pulls us out of our present reality and into virtual ones, specifically the glitzed and spot-treated worlds of social media. For their choreographic debut, Benjamin Stevenson presents Person(a), a show that seeks to engage with our existence beyond the shouts into the void that is the noise and illusion of the internet.

Stevenson’s work questions presentation in digital spaces. “Where does the line between our true selves and our personas blur?”, says Stevenson. Person(a) is particularly concerned with the effects of technology among the queer community. “It has become an online stage for us queer folk to pull stunts and receive the validation we might not get from the outside world.”

The brilliance of Benjamin's work is its ability to critique social media platforms as well as to gather information from its tools and devices. The assemblage of the various elements of the piece draw upon a comprehensive knowledge of what is dynamic to the eye. The work pays attention to how images are portrayed to an audience, whether captured in-person, on film or in photos.

The white floors recall the harsh blank wash of popular Instagram art posts while the lighting’s intensity mimics the unrelenting brightness setting of a beauty mirror or time-reversing filter. The performers (Courtney Lewis, Laura Briggs, and Patrick Otsuki) exude androgyny as their silver sheen leotards magnify every articulation. Each movement is refracted back onto the viewer. The dancers’ opera-length red satin gloves splash color across an otherwise serious chromatic scheme. Their gestures become vibrant, eye-catching, while also sleek, seductive, a sign of an artist hyper-aware of visual composition.

The space of the bare stage appears deceptively vast, even cold. Like a party stripped of all its color, there is no pretense, disguise or projected ideas of self. The rug of artificiality is swiped from under their feet. This is all that is left. Flamboyant costume separates, thick cuts of mylar confetti, and each other.

The production's design is minimal yet intentional with all its aesthetic queues. Benjamin’s poetry projects along the wall, creating a backdrop of SMS-style text. The words are sparse, wanting, adding another layer of exchange between audience and performer. The sonic world is eclectic and unique. Peter Flamming composes the atmosphere with sounds from familiar safe spaces to bizarre energetic terrain.

Nostalgia rings through the opening of the show's trailer as When You Wish Upon a Star plays over the trio. Pinocchio comes to mind. A puppet chases his unceasing desire to become a real boy, for the surface of his wooden external surface to crack and break, unveiling a true authentic self, an image of youth and jovial spirit. Our own journey may not seem as remarkable, but it is ours to share. The truth beneath our surface may not be as pretty, but perhaps there is something there we can also learn to like.

Person(a) premieres on February 1st, 2020 at The Windmill Arts Center in East Point. Tickets can be purchased at the door and online here.

Nicholas Goodly is the writing editor of Wussy Magazine, guest blogger for Georgia Writer's Association, and team member of performance platform Fly on a Wall.

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