So Real

Comments (0) By Hiya Swanhuyser Wednesday, Jan 26 2011

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Guess what? If you display a white, blonde, emaciated female body in your art, you're part of the problem. It doesn't matter if you claim your art “criticizes unrealistic expectations for women's bodies.” If you create another image of the thing that is the problem, then you are the problem. No one says you have any obligation to be anything else; go for it, it's a free fuckin' country. If, on the other hand, you use a man whose legs don't fit people's normal definition of legs in your dance performance, you're part of the solution, as is that man. Jess Curtis/Gravity's Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies features an accomplished dancer named David Toole, among others, who have shapes, ages, and ways of moving that are wildly underrepresented on stages. The piece has been traveling prior to this official world premiere, so it's been seen in Miami as well as Potsdam, Germany, as befits a project whose performers and creators come from Europe and elsewhere. San Francisco's own fighter against hegemon, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, has been an important part of the production, which to us means we can count on lovely, analytical tableaux and rebellious puns.
Sun., Feb. 6, 8 p.m., 2011