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Dance* I Can’t Forget**

Karen Sherman

Yo-yo-ing her torso above the floor; red velvet curtain costumes and no-holds skipping on concrete; reclined arabesques and blue tights; the shaky, convulsive bloody knife, a wall crashing down, the stressful incoherence; flickering, blinding lights thrumming into darkness while she kept wailing, moaning, screeching, and my girlfriend had to leave; the courtship whir of roller skates and southern niceties; light bulbs at the end of very long cords twirled around the room carving up the space like outsized helicopter blades; the fluffiest merkin popping out—making an entrance, really—as she shifted her hips; center of gravity stillness; his junkie breakfast; crashing in the corner, drowning in broomsticks, and the snappy “genesis, no” oh, so that’s what it means; silky, leggy duets, incandescence and sensuality; only the feet puzzling across the floor; the sleeping, twitching pile; shoddy walls and anemic plants shoulder the tremors of Owkui; every single brother and that’s between you and your god now, isn’t it?; the disco hips, the interior life; vining like copulating plants in the garden; a solo man, finally seen, his turning, his glasses, and is he smiling?; the brutality, the swinging scoops, the overwhelming, yes, devotion; the unspooling structural nocturnes and two great artists making multitudes; the pendulum of the body, the split infinitives of dance; my wife’s a somatic practitioner, the rawness, the sobbing sweaty truth afterwards; a swirling center of energy and two women centrifuging in open flame; the big bow, the calming of the horse, the sass; tits and cock, of course but really it was the command of the dance, Parker owning the room; the sound design that convinced me James must be a great lover; those glorious contraptions and then finally, her slicing, dicing dance; how long was she in there, how did she breathe, and the evolution of man; leaps from nothing, the muscled back, the thought that this is a natural-born talent; standing on the table, satisfaction ringing my bones, she would not let me go; minimal moves like the sharpest of needles, how much dance is revealed by the mind and not the body; the genius construction, execution, and smarts, cowed by how much rehearsal it must require; the words, the way the words, this peculiar powerhouse of a person; knowing I was seeing something/someone important, never forgetting; her rage, the salve of rage, and how all was right; everything David Thomson has done; everything Michele Boulé has done; everything Aparna Ramaswamy has done; everything Jessica Cressey has done; everything Hilary Clark has done.

Don’t Let Me Down by Cydney Wilkes, Movement Research at Judson Church, September 1993; You by Morgan Thorson, Chocolate Factory Theater, June 2015; Docudrama by Morgan Thorson, Bryant-Lake Bowl, May 2008; Law of Remains by Reza Abdoh, Diplomat Hotel, NYC, February 1992; Vena Cava by Diamanda Galás, The Kitchen, February 1992; Deportment by Jane Comfort, PS 122, May 1991; In Church by Mimi Goese, Movement Research at Judson Church, September 1993; Shuffle by Yasuko Yokoshi, PS 122, 2003; what we when we by Yasuko Yokoshi, Danspace Project, March 2006; DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE by David Neumann, PS 122, May 1997; Genesis, No! by Adrienne Truscott, PS 122, March 2007; Matching Drapes by Chris Schlichting, Red Eye Theater, February 2013; Thin Air by Donna Uchizono, Walker Art Center, April 2009; Found Wanting by Betsy Hulton, PS 122, September 1988 (??); Bronx Gothic by Okwui Okpokwasili. Fusebox Festival, April 2016; Brave Smiles by the Five Lesbian Brothers, multiple productions including WOW Café, 1992, NY Theater Workshop, 1993, PS 122, 1999; Not-About-AIDS-Dance by Neil Greenberg, The Kitchen, May 1994; Faux Summer Foe by Hijack, Hair +Nails, July 2018; a solo by Ralph Lemon, Movement Research at Judson Church, September 1997; Devotion by Sarah Michelson, The Kitchen and Walker Art Center, both early 2011; Sill Life by Morgan Thorson, Weisman Art Museum, June-September 2015; Fase by Anna Teresa de Keersmacker, Walker Art Center, January 2008; October/\ by Sarah Michelson, Walker Art Center, October 2018; Nyabinghi Dreamtime by Urban Bush Women, The Kitchen, May 1993; Baby by Tere O’Connor, DTW, March 2006; Excessories by John Jasperse, DTW, March 1995; Waving to you from here by John Jasperse, DTW, April 1997; 3600 Cuts by Pramila Vasudevan, Southern Theater, June 2017; I am the Moon and You are The Man in Me by Julie Atlas Muz, PS 122, November 2004; Like a Sun That Pours Forth Light but Never Warmth by Allie Hankins, Patrick’s Cabaret, April 2012; PJ Harvey, unannounced show, Sin-é, 1995?; Pichet Klunchun and Myself by Jerome Bel with Pichet Klunchun, WAC, November 2007; Narcissister at Fusebox Festival, April 2016; Album by Mariana Valencia, Abrons Arts Center, January 2018; Blondell Cummings, NYC, 1991-ish?; American Chestnut by Karen Finley, PS 122, September 1997.

* And some non-dance.

** Writing this, I realized I’ve probably seen over 1000 shows. As a technician alone, I’ve worked on roughly 500 different shows, most of which I also watched. Add to that all the shows I went to as an audience member (the number of which I can’t even begin to calculate), plus the number of shows I’ve performed in, and the upshot is that with the amount of time I’ve spent in theaters, I’m likely so deficient in Vitamin D it’s wonder I remember anything. Despite that, alongside shows I truly adored I remember even forgettable ones and regrettably memorable ones (I can’t say I liked Law of Remains, for example, but I’ve never forgotten the experience). I left out a lot of shows: shows I loved or didn’t, shows that inspired me to make more shows, shows that stuck with me for no real reason. Memory is not commentary; neither is exclusion. In this moment, this is my (partial) list, frontloaded with shows I saw in my early 20s when dance was new to me and everything it can do cracked my world right open.

Karen Sherman makes dances, writes, and builds things.