Ralph Lemon

I watch the performance and I think of the title “How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?” What is the point of this title? Why is their crying and discomfort? Is this designed to make any sense to the viewer?  How can I stay in BAM and not leave? These were all initial reactions that ran throughout my head for one very confusing hour and a half, but it is definitely a memorable dance performance.

As soon as I left the performance, I wondered how could I review this production.  Where would I possibly start?  My mind about the performance  was clouded with such ambiguity that I did not know where to possibly begin.

Dr. Profeta served as a very important factor to clarifying my confusion.  I honestly wish that she came first to talk and discuss the production before we viewed it.  I wondered if  this would make the production more enjoyable? I am not sure but to hear Dr.Profeta’s  insight on the performance allowed me to review the performance in my mind and to see how interesting Ralph Lemon is as an artist.

One element that was clarified to me was the staging and the elements that were incorporated.  The beginning staging was simple one part completely black with a light that focused on Ralph Lemon.  This feature immediately drew my attention to him but then a screen came down showing images.  At times I could not hear Ralph Lemon because I looked at the images, wondering what is this suppose to mean and why is it significant.  This is where I started to get confused.  Before I went to the performance I read a summary that stated the play was about a 102 year old sharecropper.  As I watch the piece I am wondering where is the sharecropper besides the beginning section. There was so much more displayed and so many issues that Dr.Profeta soon revealed.

At first I did not know what to say about the screen.  I realized that the screening was Ralph Lemon’s attempt to show the audience what inspired the future dance that would appear later on. As confusing as it was, this is what Lemon discussed.  He talks about how he had different inspirations that contribute to his ideal dance.  The screen shows Walter then Asako and how each had an important factor to his boneless and formless dance that I would watch. After the screening session dance just erupted leaving me once again confused. First it was interesting then in my opinion the dance would become drawn out to the point of annoyance.

For a review I would normally move on to the storyline, but in reality was there any storyline to the performance.  I saw the piece more as an evolution and journey that Ralph Lemon went through. For some part of his life he was in pursuit of a dance that culminated many things.  He wanted a dance filled with no form and that was what the screening was about.  To me, he was looking for a dance that had elements of the characters he encountered.  He wanted a dance that had Walter’s independence and desire to do as he pleases. He wanted a dance that was formless as opposed to the dance that Asako practiced. He went through lengths to attain this goal and he found it which is what the audience witnessed.

The dancing left me with the most questioning. I watched a group of people making sounds and throwing their bodies on the ground, which is something I definitely have not seen before. If this section was short, I would have been more thrilled, but the constant flailing of the bodies made the dance drawn out and out of hand. I saw this as a pattern in the piece as I would be interested but then annoyed at the length of the piece.  This also happened in Okwui’s wailing  in which I was drawn into her sadness and confused but then she would not stop. I felt discomfort because of this part and I wanted it to stop but it kept going on and on constantly.

Dr.Profeta allowed me to think of these elements of the performances in this way.  It made me wonder and see the performance in a whole different light.  I was no longer fully negative about it but I could see it overall differently.  That is the beauty of performances in the area of art.  You can come out thinking it was such a bad show, but in the end you see it at a different angle and you grow to like it.  I should definitely do that more often in performances that I view. Overall Ralph Lemon’s performance would always leave me with questions as to what is his exact message to the audience, something that will be hard to figure out.