Body Parts: Stand-up, turn-around, all-out comedy
By Kaija Pepper
Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg is a popular Vancouver artist, well known for her humorous dance dramas. In the first of her standout solos, bANGER (2006), she channelled a teen metalhead with brilliant kinetic insight; you can catch a glimpse of this early character study here. Highgate (2013) featured an ensemble in a spooky romp through Victorian funerary culture.
Body Parts, at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre May 3-6, is another full-length solo, this one a mix of stand-up comedy and physical storytelling, during which Friedenberg creates wildly imaginative scenes that require intense audience buy-in to work. She got that in full on opening night, when the audience was with her all the way.
The body parts in question are her own; her “aging ‘post-pregnancy body’” says the program note. Friedenberg is 50, so not too old — and yet old viewed under the spotlight female bodies are subjected to by our culture. That’s what Friedenberg does, too: she puts her body — her stomach and breasts — at the centre of this enjoyably rambling hour of personal anecdote and societal observations.
Body Parts is beautifully presented: the stage is strewn with a string of clothing we later learn is made up of donated cast-offs from friends, clothes they don’t feel good in. James Proudfoot’s lighting and Marc Stewart’s music support the artist without demanding undue attention — that all goes to the dynamic, friendly, and confessional woman who claims the stage as naturally as if she were at home chatting with friends. It’s a superb performance, and — just in case the Canada Council for the Arts is listening (she worries there won’t be enough dance to please this important funder) — the dancer’s sensibility is key. Whether Friedenberg is kinetically exploding, or shape-shifting from one scenario to another, or actually dancing, expressive motion is in her bones. Admittedly, she can’t resist spoof-dancing, but who doesn’t feel the need to occasionally poke fun at the pretentiousness of some contemporary dance?
One rant is against “thin privilege”: if you don’t know what this is, she says, you probably have it. The rant goes on to encompass thin ballet bodies, during which Friedenberg performs dainty ballet clichés with such great ridiculous aplomb that I giggled along with everyone else. The scene ends with the idea that we are all dancers, whatever our shape and size. Yes, absolutely, but I balked at the ballet-bodies shaming. It’s like with dedicated high-level athletes: their bodies are shaped for and by their sport, for which some are more naturally suited than others, and good on them.
Perhaps that was one of the trigger points we were warned about at the start (Jewish jokes might be another; guilt-stricken, Friedenberg quickly claims her Jewish heritage). I certainly don’t want to be the comedy police. This latest production by Tara Cheyenne Performance was a hearty and frankly foolish break from many solemn evenings spent in the wonderful world of dance — and, of course, not only there. I had a great time, and can’t wait for Friedenberg’s next show.
