they wanna check my papers see what I carry around, credentials are boring i burnt them at the burial ground… – M.I.A. birdflu

Sahar Javendani is showing her newest work-in-progress as part of DTW’s Studio Series.  The Studio Series is meant as a research laboratory for physical explorations and new movement investigations with a focus on process, not final performance/product. The “performances” are intended to be informal public showings to share ideas with an audience in the intimate working space of the studio.  I’d first seen Sahar’s work on DTW’s 2009 Fresh Tracks and then again as part of Danspace @BRIC’s “Home” program.  Her theatrical, witty and poignant takes on issues of gender representation, cultural mores, and national ties made her an artist I was immediately enamored with.  Having spent decades digging into the ever-shifting conflicts among an ad nauseum list of expected personal allegiance (flags, aesthetics, communities, sexual orientations,  blah blah blah blah blah), I value watching someone else tackle it with a hearty dose of ribaldry. 

“The Turquoise Lounge” is in very early stages so I can understand to a point why the performative heart of the work still only resideds in the body of its creator.  However, for a work that aims to look at the intricacies of personal politics amidst the reality of global identities (the work is set in an airport customs lounge), the remaining cast seems noticeably tied to an Ellis Island lineage lacking the breadth that its bellydancing and bhangra teaching choreographer carries with her.

See Culturebot’s 5 Questions for Sahar from last year.