HQ Review: Cloven III SpaceStation Dance Residency Fundraiser

It was from poet Alok Vaid-Menon (via social media, of course) that I first heard the phrase “silly solutions to serious problems.” A relief to think we need not always meet dire with dire, weight with ever increasing weight. How might levity (or a touch of lunacy) serve us better? Can we play our way through pain as we were apt to do as children? Can our silliness preserve our humanity in moments of difficulty? These questions came to mind during post-show Q&A when co-choreographer and performer Betsy Brandt remarked that an approach she and collaborator Jacob Henss explored in Cloven III was how “absurdity works in a moment of crisis.” A graceful approach to the telling of a story which, as Henss put it himself during the Q&A, is touched by sentimentality and reckoning.

In Cloven III, we are told a story. It is, according to the program, the performers, and our own perception, a story about cows. About their reproduction, their care, their bodies, their auction, their slaughter, and their consumption. But every good story is about more than itself. This piece occupies a delicate space between performance art and concert dance; an overlapping place concerned with process over product, where performance space serves as laboratory, failure and risk are creative fodder (no pun intended), all possible outcomes are embraced, and lived experiences become visible on bodies in performance.

The audience entered a narrow chapel replete with high wood-beamed ceilings, ornate windows, and church pews pushed against each wall. The room was washed in orange and green stage lights and a few strips of black floor delineated the dance space from the watching space, which was in the round. Henss entered from a door at the far end of the room, dressed in a cow costume. Actually, it was less costume than pajamas. Feet, hands, and face were exposed, a thin tail swung from the back, and the cartoon likeness of a cow’s face smiled from the hood which was pulled up to cover the performer's head. Henss lowered himself to all fours and slowly, haltingly, made his way around the edge of the room. Audience members withdrew their feet occasionally to make space for his arm, leg, or face as it lowered to touch the floor. On the other side of the room another figure emerged in the same black and white costume. Brandt moved along the perimeter of the space on hands and knees with the same careful faltering motions as Henss. A flute played over the sounds of distant bells and moving water as the two performers carefully wandered around the perimeters of the room, often coming to complete stillness before gently padding their way forward again.

Suddenly they stood together, shoulder to shoulder, left arms lifted with three fingers extended to the sky and they spoke in unison: “this is a piece about cows.” A drastic music change ushered in a bout of rhythmic movement: with undulating hips and spines the performers danced in quick, full-bodied unison. The cow suits were removed to reveal neon colored cropped tanks and cow print chaps. The synchronized movements deteriorated into a series of stumbling stomps and kicks which steadily picked up speed until both dancers collapsed. They began to move together in silence and impressive unison, slapping their own legs and turning over and over while lying prostrate on the floor.

Leaving the performance space briefly, they returned again with props (two stools most notably) and began to read to us from a piece of paper explaining in great detail, verbally and eventually by demonstration, the somewhat gruesome process of artificially inseminating a cow. Giant plastic gloves and extra long syringe in hand, Brandt “demonstrated” on Henss while the latter delicately perched himself on the stools. The section could have been the height of discomfort if not for a light-hearted approach and the obvious trust these performers had for each other. The crowd erupted in easeful giggles at several intervals.

Without ever leaving our seats, the audience was guided through this strange bovine world. We followed Henss and Brandt through the mess of giant plastic gloves eventually strewn across the floor, through the many iterations of partnering which were tender and brutal in turns. We followed to the auction of Henss, with his actual CV projected on the wall as Brandt discussed his career and education with us, through an incident with a hair dryer, a burlesque-inspired bit with a leaf blower, and we followed as Brandt stripped Henss of his costume and threw sliced meat at his compliant body.

In the final section, Henss descended to the floor and began carefully, methodically balancing sliced meat on himself. Brandt came behind him with a cutting board, removing and collecting the meat slices from his body. They made their way around to the audience, offering slices of meat. Some tentatively received a slice from Henss’ hand, others declined. Projected on one wall during these final moments of the piece were photos of actual cows on a farm, juxtaposed with images of a young boy in cow costumes, and several handwritten notes, some about the cows, others about the boy. One said, in a scrawling hand: “Jacob and his cows.” It was an unexpected moment of quiet, terrible, vulnerability after such clamorous play and exposure. Eventually Henss is alone on stage, lying between two small wooden fences. We were left with scrolling images of animals and boy, a floor littered with giant, green plastic gloves, and Henss’ curled up body. The audience stood to applause.

My experience of Cloven III took me by surprise. I was expecting to have questions and to be challenged. I was not expecting to be quite so moved. I was not expecting to feel recognition. The piece moves like a body of water, swelling and growing, threatening to overflow the space which contains it. The metaphors and images are stretched too; extended to the brink of collapsing on themselves before being brought back to form just in time. Bombastic absurdity bookended by moments of risky vulnerability: a quiet beginning, and a poignant finale.