Sagittarius A. was a sensational performance with underlying feminist messaging. Yara Travieso, the director, is known for mythologizing and demystifying the female figure. This performance exemplified the directors theme through dance, and an interpretive plot, that highlighted female elegance and female metaphysical awareness.

At the start, a woman, SA, was tied to four pieces of cloth to represent limbs, and cradled back and forth to show the elegance of having them. A wolf appears, and becomes jealous of her femininity. As the narrator mentioned, the wolf was particularly jealous of her ability to create, as a universal figure or woman, so the wolf rips her limbs off.

This is how it starts, but everything gets interupted. A woman, Dr. Amalia, emerged, with a sloppy walk, who muttered but them spoke out loud. She eventually dropped all her paperwork. It appeared that she was not acting, which may have tricked some of the audience into believing that this could be a real performance interruption. This act perhaps was to make people listen more carefully to what she had to say, to discern if the interruption was authentic; What she had to say was a story of star in space, which was represented and embodied by the dancing woman SA. The story was sensational, as she spoke of the cosmos and the star with many disparate features. A film then begins.

The film was of the woman, Ana. Body part words flash on screen, to direct the attention of the audience toward femininity, and human power with one’s bodily assets. Ana dances and we get a sense of elegance, and eventually this causes the camera to spin euphorically. However, Ana moves the dance into the forest. Ana’s dance is interrupted and she begins to fill with fear. A wolf from the forest eventually bites Ana, but she runs away, to a river where she bleeds until the water is red. Ana then decides to make a comeback against the wolf. We go in to first person, and view a second version of the forest scene dance scene, through the lense of supernatural viewpoint of Ana, like the wolf. I will postulate the meaning of this, assuming there is any meaning whatsoever; Ana becomes stronger than the wolf by losing the sense of fear that comes from surprise, that coming to confront herself as a supernatural being, perhaps through her imagination or dreams, to normalize the situation or fear. This confrontation with the subconscious, is like early how a early 20th century psychologist would tell someone to deal with the fear.

Dr. Amilia opens the conversation back into an abstract talk, and demonstration of the body using an animation above. This animation demonstrates a sense of empowerment through a bodily sense that is characteristic of the vastness of the universe. There is dancing, and we are told to hold up our phone lights and to wave and view them like stars. This interactivity is exciting. At the end there is a full performance where all senses of motion are triggered. SA straps herself to huge cloth on either side of the room, and has lights that cast her shadow on the cloth and other areas of the room. Then all screens turn on and elegance of motion and starry lights ensues everywhere. SA dances into the harness which causes the curtains to float, causing ones peripherals to make one feel like gravity had been lost. This overwhelming display shows that SA has gained much greater strength than at the beginning of the play. Then a repetitive message is made by the speaker, that our arms are ropes and stars, and this marks the end.

This performance was significantly more about feelings than storyline, perhaps evident by the constant description of SA’s body as if it was a floating object in a galaxy. This encapsulating experience of motion occurs frequently with large cloth and screens, or dancers running around the audience. Dr. Amalia seems dopey and uncontrolled at the beginning, but begins to seem more inspirational and empowering by the end, even beginning to dance herself. This show shows confidence, but after the storyline, supreme confidence. The performance reminded me of high/low aspects we discussed during the 60’s cultural revolution in class; there were times when the water was clear, but then it became blood red, times when a human was compared to a star life cycle, or when sentiment would shift between loneliness to self-empowerment.



Overall I loved the performance because of how it made me feel. The setting was meant to be involving to the audience, as carefully chosen sentences were made about space and the human body. I like that representation was fully encapsulating most senses of the whole theater, as opposed to minute stimulation, like interpreted dance typically feels like. Overall, the video elements and audience interaction elements added to the experience of the interpretive dance.