Back Fabrica Europa

Bruce Michelson
01.07.2005

Director Maurizia Settembris main festival programming kicked off at CANGO with Yasmeen Godder’s Two Playful Pink, a disturbing piece about the many shapes into which women are pressed to conform. Indeed these not all external, and the 2001 Bessie Award-winner employs a variety of tools to underline the personal and psychological agents of self-oppression in this three-part assault on feminine acquiescence. Inventive and sometimes disconcerting use of voice and some rather tortuous facial acrobatics provide the emotional fuel, but not at the expense of movement. Godder and her partner Iris Erez are a formidable team, often stunningly synchronized in their simultaneous solos, quick action breaks and counterbalanced duets. Almost cinematic in texture, Two Playful Pink is extreme in some ways; shame, fear, desolation and abuse all raise their ugly heads. But the dance elements give exceptionally focused support to Godder’s disquieting themes to create an impact of internal dissonance, rebellion, containment and sporadic release.