THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 9, 1995 TAG: 9511090025
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUE SMALLWOOD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
CHOREOGRAPHER Jane Comfort dropped the word ``dance'' from her Manhattan-based troupe's moniker years ago.
``I was afraid people would come with the expectation of lots of arabesques,'' she says with a laugh.
Comfort's acclaimed choreography is as much about acting as dancing, speaking as moving. The combination of languages - verbal and physical - forms the basis of her work.
``To me it just seems totally natural,'' Comfort said recently from her New York City home. ``But I realize that for a lot of audiences who are used to coming to see dance where the music comes on and people come out in their leotards and dance, this is very different. People call it dance theater or performance, I heard the term `art musical' the other day, and I thought that might describe it pretty well.''
Jane Comfort and Company will bring her latest work, ``S/He'' (pronounced ``she-he''), to the Wells Theater on Saturday evening as part of the Tidewater Performing Arts Society's series.
``It came about through some of my previous work and also long history as a woman,'' Comfort explained. ``It is a series of vignettes in different media: singing, dancing, acting. It uses reversal as a device to look at gender and race attitudes in this country. It reverses social attitudes in current events with an eye toward gender and race, just to have a look at an old story in a new way.''
For instance, the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings. In Comfort's skewering of the proceedings, a white man accuses a white woman of sexual harassment in front of a Senate investigation panel composed of powerful black women.
``We use the actual testimony,'' Comfort described. ``To hear Clarence Thomas' `high-tech lynching' testimony being given by a white woman is pretty hilarious - and horrifying too. The Senate panel uses call and response, the testimony is structured in a very musical way. It's singing, acting and dancing with a very political purpose.''
``S/He'' also delves into the vastly different ways that men and women use space through a diverse movement vocabulary, including boxing footwork, flamenco port de bras, and even seated postures.
``We were teaching each other when we were making up the dance,'' Comfort recalled. ``It was just incredible how the men (when sitting), their legs would automatically be wide apart and their arms would be out and they'd be using up all this space. The women would do poses where the legs would immediately cross, we'd sit farther back in the chair, maybe lean forward and get our spine little. It was like we were trying to get little and the men were going big.
``Then after you do that kind of exercise, you get on the subway and it's just right there in front of you. Women weren't taught to sit like that to give men room - the big thing is crossing your legs so no one can see your underpants, we all heard that - but I think unconsciously there's some kind of disappearing act going on. As I watched women improvise with those postures, it's amazing how the spine contracts.''
``S/He's'' other explorations of gender issues include a female crooning ``He's Having My Baby'' to a pregnant male in a business suit and an episode of domestic violence in which a woman brutalizes a man. That will perhaps have more of an impact in light of the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
``Norfolk is going to be the first place we perform that scene since the verdict,'' Comfort said. ``That scene is upsetting to people, some people are sobbing in the audience, other people tell us later that it just trivializes domestic abuse, therapists tell us that the progression of that scene is exactly how (domestic abuse) happens. I'm curious to see if the Simpson verdict has changed in any way the way an audience sees this scene.''
Comfort danced briefly as a child growing up in Tennessee, then rediscovered her first love while studying painting at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she saw modern dance master Merce Cunningham perform.
``I remember watching him and thinking, `I would rather do that than come into a room and face an empty canvas every day,' '' Comfort said. ``And I've never regretted that switch.'' After marrying and moving to New York, Comfort ended up studying under Cunningham.
The choreographer free-lanced for several years before starting her own dance company. She has also worked on Broadway, creating the musical staging for Stephen Sondheim's ``Passion.''
``The unions have a huge input into the structure of a rehearsal,'' she said. ``It's eight hours a day, six days a week. Then you go to 10 hours a day for 12 days straight up until your previews. It's extremely high pressure and very collaborative. But I would love to have the experience again.'' MEMO: DANCE
What: Jane Comfort and Company performing ``S/He''
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: the Wells Theater, Norfolk
Tickets: $18-22
Call: 671-8100. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by William Boorstein
by CNB