Dance and comedy don’t often go together, but two solo performers will mix movement with stand-up comedy at the Dance Complex this weekend.
Both Maine-based performance artist Sara Juli and Boston visual artist Alexander Davis will engage with topics based on difficult events, lightened by their storytelling.
Juli will perform a work she’s still developing, “Midseason Mood.” “The piece is about middle age and the erasure of women as they age,” Juli said. “It’s about finding your voice and agency in middle age against the backdrop of women’s voices being squashed both historically and today.”
Juli’s repertoire surrounds mindfulness and mental clarity with topics ranging from postpartum depression to the challenges of marriage. This work, focusing on the experience of entering perimenopause blends dance, theater, and comedy against the score of Max Richter’s 2012 reimagining of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”
“This piece of music is a dauntingly beautiful, epic composition that is both highly intimidating and then wildly exhilarating,” Juli said.
Juli’s creative process starts with what’s bothering her at the moment. “Midseason Mood” is driven by the symptoms of menopause experienced by the 50-something-year-old artist, including brain fog, memory lapses, hot flashes, joint pain and rapid weight gain.
“I’m frustrated by my body not functioning well but I’m also frustrated by the lack of education leading up to this period to prepare for what has always been made fun of as ‘the change,’” Juli said.
Juli calls herself an oversharer and tells personal stories in this piece with the intention to have people, particularly female and female-identifying individuals say “oh I see you, I’m feeling that as well.”
“I try to use art as a way to acknowledge something that has been marginalized or ignored. My goal is to spark a dialogue,” Juli said. “How are we expected to fight what’s happening on the outside if we’re fighting what’s happening on the inside? How can we help ourselves be more empowered by this moment in our lives that seemingly every woman passes through in some way shape or form.”
Boston-based choreographer, performer, and visual artist Alexander Davis has a presence in Juli’s piece to overlay the works of these two artists. The other half of the evening is dedicated to Davis’s “Gay Aesthetic: Based on a True Story.”
Several years ago Davis was cast in a new work under the condition that he lose weight in order to fit the “gay aesthetic” the choreographer sought.
“As an artist I’m able to filter in and out helpful or unhelpful information,” Davis said. “He said it so casually in a way that stuck with me and the way he evoked the gay community.This other part of my identity felt weaponized against me in that moment.”
Written with Jeremy Brothers, this 45-minute solo will be performed with live music composed by Tyler Leif. Davis describes the work as a dance piece, a critique, a comedy, and theater.
“I identify as a maximalist in the way I produce work,” Davis said.
After declining the role Davis turned to researching how the choreographer came to that line of thinking.
“I went down a rabbit hole of photography and the way the male body has been presented through dance, film, imagery, and television.” Davis said. “It sent me into a very early existential midlife crisis that I put into this dance, which is a pseudo-academic memoir about who gets to decide what something or someone is supposed to look like.”
Thematically, this memoiristic dance comedy explores themes of belonging. Davis takes the audience on a journey from early male erotic physique photography all the way to Bravo reality show “Vanderpump Rules.” The evening will include both physical storytelling and moments of Davis sharing a story. The dance utilizes theatrical elements of storytelling to encapsulate all that Davis has to share.
“I see my dance performance as an opportunity to close a loop on all the things I’m interested in and all of the areas of study and practice that I have,” Davis said.
“Sara Juli’s Midseason Mood and Gay Aesthetic: Based on a True Story” at 7 p.m. March 21 and March 22 at The Dance Complex, 536 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, Cambridge.
This story was updated to correct the first reference to Alexander Davis, and the photo caption.
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