Political Mother

Some would say the way I got to Political Mother should have put a damper on the performance. I forgot my ticket on the train on the way to the performance and my friends and I had get off; I had to run back to my dorm to get it. By the time we got on the train again and headed towards the theater, we were running about 20 minutes late as we rushed towards the signs that said BAM. We entered into one building that we thought was the Howard Gilman Opera House only to find that that building was around the block. As we turned right towards the correct building, we could hear loud, pounding music being played through the metal doors. We weren’t even in the theater yet, but it sounded quite intriguing already.

When we finally got there, we were escorted to our seats, but not the ones we were supposed to sit in. Our seats were actually on the lower level towards the back where we could see everything that was happening on stage. As I settled into the theater, I noticed that there was a dense layer of smoke hanging in the air and flashing lights. The theater was full of people all enraptured by what was occurring on stage and the music that was playing.

On stage, the dancers were already performing with very dramatic movements. Their movements were spastic and erratic as they moved their hands in the air and contorted their bodies this way and that. Despite its erratic nature, I thought the dancers had certain fluidity in their movement as they moved from one position to the next. Sometimes one dancer would start with a move and the rest would join in. It was truly amazing to watch the dancers do all these moves as one unit because the movements seemed so unpredictable. I found it so interesting that they could actually perform them with such coordination. At the same time, each dancer gave way to the music; their bodies were taken over by it. As I watched the dancers, I was just appreciating everything they were doing and asking “How did they do that?”. I kept wondering how they practiced this piece of work and thought, “Wow, those practices must have been very interesting!”

While the dancers were performing, there were other things going on. There were flashing lights that I thought added to the performance; I felt they mirrored the chaotic nature of the dancing. In addition, there was a man yelling into a microphone behind them, along with musicians that played guitar and drums. At times, they were hidden in darkness until the lights flashed and revealed them playing. The man yelling was incomprehensible as he screamed and shouted at the top of his lungs. As he yelled, the dancers continued to make their peculiar movements and seemed in a way controlled by it.

If I had to attribute a meaning to the performance, I would probably do it in light of the title Political Mother. The man yelling and the people playing along with him represent a type of oppression. This oppression, represented through the loud and pounding noise they were spewing out, is very powerful. The people are shown moving with their spastic and chaotic movements, which represent the symptoms of being controlled by this powerful oppression.

Something that I really wasn’t expecting to appear during the performance was the expression “Where there is pressure, there is folk dance”. It added an interesting twist. It was if the performance was telling us when we become too burdened by things, we should revert to our original state of being. We should return to a time before there was any establishment, a time that was more primitive and relied on intuition. This phrase gives us something to think about as we live our busy lives because perhaps sometimes we feel that the chaos of our lives causes a necessity to return to how things previously were.

At the end of the performance, I was really glad I didn’t miss it. It was really enjoyable to see the dancers and musicians perform in a different way than I was used to. After seeing it, my advice for all is that the next time that you’re feeling a little or a lot of stress, just do a little dance and shake your arms in the air. It may make you feel better.