‘La Femme Tragique’ at Les Girls
I am not a big fan of burlesque and rarely enjoy butoh – so many sad characters and powdered angst. But Kata Pierce’s press release caught my attention: Golden Corpse Butoh Ensemble presents “La Femme Tragique: The Story of Memorie” at Les Girls Theater.
Les Girls is an all-nude strip club off Rosecrans. It’s hard to miss the giant sign. Goofy cabaret laws allow patrons over age 18 to watch naked women and sip soft drinks. There is no alcohol. A sign above the entrance warns of nudity inside, but I doubt many visitors run away after reading it.
The theater will not win any awards for décor. The style is dark and dingy. String lights run along a small stage. A little bed carved into the back wall looks a bit like a crypt. Yes, there is a pole.
Seats are strangely reminiscent of church pews, but wrapped in carpeting. There are narrow booths in the back where one can have privacy, which brings new meaning to the expression “We’d like a booth.”
The ensemble is a collection of well-known modern dance artists including Minaqua McPherson, John Diaz, and Anne Gehman, and butoh artist Charlene Penner, who often performs with Eveoke Dance Theater. Pierce invited them and others to collaborate and train with her and butoh artist Diego Piñón.
“La Femme” is inspired by a poem by Pierce (that is autobiographical), which tells the story of a young Catholic girl who becomes a stripper. The cast expanded characters and the result was a structured improvisation that scrolled across the stage like an old film. Think Rocky Horror Picture Show, without the singing and in slow-motion.
The program did not romanticize or condemn the odd occupation of strip teasing or exotic dancing. While one dancer was fully nude, and another waved a – let’s call it a long sex toy that starts with a “d” and ends with “o,” the program was never overly erotic.
Honestly, the experience was just weird and awkward. Watching a nude fair-skinned woman who was clearly portraying a pre-pubescent, innocent child was unsettling and sad. She was a weightless, helpless object, and somebody’s daughter.
“La Femme” is not going to impress those who see nudity as demeaning. And the slow, intense butoh style is an acquired taste. It does not convey a sense of humor. Amidst copious program notes, there’s mention that the cast performed a run-through for a convalescent home; I’m guessing the costuming was more substantial!
I found myself drifting and comparing. I’ve attended three strip clubs in my life –make that four now – all in the company of several friends and relatives. That’s not a big survey, and perhaps cheap drinks were to blame, but I recall that things were relaxed and upbeat, a few yuks and laughs. In contrast, “La Femme” by design was overly slow and serious, hardly the lively cabaret show you might expect.
I don’t remember the show at the club in LA, it was in the 80s when Spandex was hot, but was intrigued by the “whatever” attitude of our topless cocktail waitress. “Does she have another passion? What will she do when she hits 40 or 50?” I wondered.
A club in Tijuana had a Vaudeville theme. When the pudgy comedian introduced a nude ballet, my brother almost tipped over in his chair. A man spun a woman over his head. She went into a trance, locked her arms stiff, and whirled like a helicopter blade.
At the Club Saratoga in Duluth, Minnesota, a woman performed a magic trick dance. Without delving into details, she swallowed a glove and magically retrieved it. (They have jazz there on Sunday afternoons too).
And so it was on a recent Friday night that a group of us headed to Les Girls Theater, a windowless barn that co-owner Pierce touts as a San Diego Landmark. That’s up for debate, but Pierce is on to something with “La Femme” in that it takes viewers to unfamiliar territory and challenges our notion of art and beauty – and confronts ageism.
The most compelling image was Penner riding on the train of Pierce’s tattered gown, a wide-eyed ghost of Pierce’s former, younger self.
I am not ruining the program by saying that Pierce had people wincing but also marveling at her fortitude in the second half.
She carefully stepped out of her gown to expose a mature, 64-year-old woman’s body. With eyes twinkling, she stood proudly.
Men and women in the audience wanted to cheer. Still, the experience stirred up feelings of inadequacy and body image.
The drama really heated up with the entrance of Diaz as the Aztec Bird God who shared divine wisdom with the mortals. Adorned with warrior paint on his face and red stained knees, he was riveting in poses and slow extensions.
In the role of Night Terror, Gehman, with heavy black eyeliner running, exuded madness in the realm of Alice Cooper crossed with a dead French maid. As Angela, McPherson embodied the perfect female form in a sheer lace sheath.
Costumes designed by Gehman were subtle and effective in defining characters. The lighting design by McPherson cast shadows on smooth skin and illuminated expressive faces. Music was engaging and tapped into cabaret days long gone, such as Natalie Wood singing “Let Me Entertain You,” and Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose.”
“La Femme Tragique” had an early start. That’s because the real show started afterward. Our tickets let us stay for that. We sipped some non-alcoholic wine and agreed to stay until one of us said “uncle.”
A thin woman with boyish hips did an uninspired bump and grind. She didn’t seem to notice the audience, even when a woman tossed dollar bills onto the stage.
We lasted a few minutes and sneaked out in the darkness.
Program cover: KD Rose Productions & Golden Corpse Butoh Ensemble Presents: La Femme Tragique: The Story of Memorie. “a unique mix of Cabaret-Butoh-inspired energy, Modern dance & Metaphor. July 13-15, 2012. Les Girls Theater, a San Diego Landmark.
Cast: in order of appearance:
Angela: Minaqua McPherson
Memorie: Kata Pierce-Morgan
Memorie: Charlene Penner
Tragic Angela: Dawn ter Veen
Feathered Angela: Lizzy Moore
Society Lady: Mary Gyselbrecht
Night Terror: Anne Gehman
The Seeker: Sarah Jaffe
Aztecan Bird God: John Diaz
Kris Eitland covers dance and theater for Sandiegostory.com and freelances for other publications, including the Union Tribune and Dance Teacher Magazine. She grew up performing many dance styles and continued intensive modern dance and choreography at the Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth, and San Diego State Univ. She also holds a journalism degree from SDSU. Her career includes stints in commercial and public radio news production.
Eitland has won numerous Excellence in Journalism awards for criticism and reporting from the San Diego Press Club. She has served on the Press Club board since 2011 and is a past president. She is a co-founder of Sandiegostory.com. She has a passion for the arts, throwing parties with dancing and singing, and cruising the Pacific in her family’s vintage trawler. She trains dogs, skis, and loves seasonal trips to her home state of Minnesota.
The reviewer sounds more interesting than the show. What an eclectic and risqué life she seems to lead.
You are a humorous and thoughtful reviewer. Very well-written. You understood my show in its characters and imagery. It doesn’t matter that you are not a fan of Butoh. I loved the review with its integrity and insight.
A truely wonderful, witty, and insightful review. The territory of this work was indeed difficult to navigate, yet your words are on target.
[…] a burlesque show at a San Diego strip club? The Canal Park spot gets a mention in a dance review on sandiegostory.com. The ’Toga was used to provide context for the reviewer’s knowledge of nude dancing, as it was […]
The last day of La Femme Tragique performance, a man approached me and said he had heard me speak in 1990 as the guest speaker for a political party dinner at the Kona Kai Club. He had seen my promo card at San Diego Stage and Lighting, and remembered my long ago presentation, entitled “Sex, Lies and Videotapes.” Now, 22 years later, he was again in the Sunday audience to which I had just remarked that the next La Femme Tragique, Part 2 in a trilogy, would be a little bit more political. And yes with the relevant nudity you would expect at a strip club…AND in the political arena as well, maybe not as surprising today as it was in 1990. All that aside, I want to share his reaction to the show (via email):
Sunday’s performance was a mind-blower- I knew it would probably be worthwhile, but I wasn’t expecting it to be that good. It managed to be very emotionally potent without any melodrama or obvious narrative elements- very surreal and dream-like. It seemed old, like something that might have been staged at Cabaret Voltaire in 1916, and it also reminded me a bit of an old experimental film by Kenneth Anger I recently saw at the art museum in downtown L.A.
In my own experience, Butoh is certainly an acquired taste! After watching a Butoh-inspired film called “Cherry Blossoms.” which illuminated the deep meanings of this dark dance for me., Butoh suddenly took on a deeply emotional connotation for me. Now I am finding the same thing to be true of Les Girls. On my first visit there, I found it to be dark and the grinding dancing to be, well, shocking to my Southern Baptist sensibilities. However, watching La Femme Tragique I perceived the venue as a charming old theater with deep roots in San Diego history. The lights that encircled the stage created an intimate setting for this intense performance. I was charmed by each one the performers. Kata and Charlene created a powerful visual beginning to the show. Society Lady Mary provided a wonderfully disapproving character as the object of taunting by the sexy and sensual Minaqua, and Lizzy, as The Feathered Angela, was seductive and saucy as the French burlesque icon. The always magnificent John Diaz blazed across the stage as the Aztecan Bird God. I thought the nude, fair-skinned Tragic Angela performed beautifully as the vision of despair and lost innocence. Sarah and Charlene performed a very moving duet of a dance that was quite beautiful to see. I also thought that Anne brought her usually insightful performance to her character. I won’t forget the many outrageous expressions that crossed Kata’s face that evening – especially as she was chuckling and bouncing about and then later as she bared her breasts triumphantly and unrepentant at the end of the show. Bravo!