Death and Eros
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Premier: February 11, 2000, Lula Washington Dance Theatre
Length: 34 minutes Dancers: 6 women, 4 men Available for Re-staging: Yes Categories: Large Ensemble Choreography: Donald McKayle Music: Jon Magnussen Costume Design: Madeline Kozwalski Lighting Design: Tom Ruzika & Shelly Callahan Vocalists: Eloise Laws and Kingsley Leggs |
Death and Eros is the initial entry in Donald McKayle’s “Story Dance Theatre,” a project immersed in the oral traditions of both indigenous and displaced peoples. This excursion in narrative work bypasses the literal and calls on the imagination as a guide to legend and lore. The dance is a movement illumination of the legend of the “Skeleton Woman,” an Inuit tale passed down in the oral tradition from generation to generation.
A woman is cast into the sea by her father for an act of great effrontery to the mores and beliefs of the family. Beneath the waters her flesh is eaten away leaving only her bare skeleton and her spirit that remains alive.
A hungry fisherman, far away from his home, comes to the cove of the Skeleton Woman, a place believed haunted by the local fisherman and therefore avoided. The fisherman arrives as a great storm suddenly ceases and casts his line into the waters. He hooks the skeleton woman tossing in the currents below and pulls her upward to his kayak. He retreats in fear from the horrific sight that he beholds, dragging the caught skeleton woman with him. In a macabre dance, she seems to trip across the surface of the water. He reaches land and races across the frozen tundra; the skeleton woman, lashed to him, in a constant pursuit. He reaches his hut and dives inside into the darkness. He lights a fire and in the glow, perceives the skeleton woman lying there in an entangled heap. In this vulnerable state, she is no longer frightening or dangerous. Something is awakened within him; he approaches her, rearranges her bones, and decides to bury her properly the next morning.
As he sleeps tears seep from his eyes; the skeleton woman crawls over to him and drinks the salty liquid. Flesh returns to her bones and hair grows lushly upon her head. She awakens the sleeping fisherman, pounding his heart with a sacred and lustful rhythm. They join together in a communion of body and spirit.
Whenever the northern lights are seen, they are there, ever present as two piercing dots of light within the Aurora Borealis. Their love is eternal and stronger than death.
A woman is cast into the sea by her father for an act of great effrontery to the mores and beliefs of the family. Beneath the waters her flesh is eaten away leaving only her bare skeleton and her spirit that remains alive.
A hungry fisherman, far away from his home, comes to the cove of the Skeleton Woman, a place believed haunted by the local fisherman and therefore avoided. The fisherman arrives as a great storm suddenly ceases and casts his line into the waters. He hooks the skeleton woman tossing in the currents below and pulls her upward to his kayak. He retreats in fear from the horrific sight that he beholds, dragging the caught skeleton woman with him. In a macabre dance, she seems to trip across the surface of the water. He reaches land and races across the frozen tundra; the skeleton woman, lashed to him, in a constant pursuit. He reaches his hut and dives inside into the darkness. He lights a fire and in the glow, perceives the skeleton woman lying there in an entangled heap. In this vulnerable state, she is no longer frightening or dangerous. Something is awakened within him; he approaches her, rearranges her bones, and decides to bury her properly the next morning.
As he sleeps tears seep from his eyes; the skeleton woman crawls over to him and drinks the salty liquid. Flesh returns to her bones and hair grows lushly upon her head. She awakens the sleeping fisherman, pounding his heart with a sacred and lustful rhythm. They join together in a communion of body and spirit.
Whenever the northern lights are seen, they are there, ever present as two piercing dots of light within the Aurora Borealis. Their love is eternal and stronger than death.