"I Am Mother" 13 Years Later

I started writing this blog in earnest in the summer 2009. One of the first events I wrote about was the Frenetic Fringe Festival. Frenetic was a funky theater and dance studio complex on Navigation. The Fringe festival was a festival of short theatrical works in a variety of of genres, including dance. Now I was an utter dance novice when I saw this. I have tried to remember any other dance performances I went to before then, and all I can recall is seeing The Nutcracker. Among the dance performances were three choreographed by Toni Leago Valle: “Silent Victim","Interview for a Date/I Take My Dress Off", and “I Am Mother.” I was astonished by them—they were my favorite performances at the Frenetic Fringe Festival that year. Here’s what I wrote about “I Am Mother” when I saw it.

• The dancer was Valle.

• Her skin was covered with white, pasty makeup except for her eyes, which were kind of a red racoon mask.

• The dance was done seated, under a soft, dim red spotlight.

• Weirdly enough, I was reminded of the installation by Carlos Runcie-Tanaka called "Tiempo Detenido/No Olvidar." The atmosphere was similar.

• Her movements were constrained by her seated posture.

• But the effect was nonetheless electrifying.

Why I wrote it in bullet points, I can’t remember. I was conscious then of not having the vocabulary to describe what I had just seen. I still don’t really have the vocabulary. How do people talk about dance?

Toni Veago Valle dancing “I Am Mother” photographed by Ted Viens, copyright 2009

Tonight I saw Valle perform “I Am Mother” again. Everything I wrote above is still true, although the comparison to the Carlos Runcie-Tanaka exhibit really doesn’t apply. (I wonder if anyone reading this had seen it.) Her movements weren’t constrained; they were jerky and a little robotic. Not that the performance was robotic—it felt simultaneously ecstatic and controlled.

This was a small part of a bigger performance by 6 Degrees called Score. Score is a celebration of 20 years of 6 Degrees—a kind of greatest hits album. According to their website, “I Am Mother” premiered in 2004 two weeks after Valle gave birth. The rest of Score was very entertaining, but because I had seen Valle do “I Am Mother” before, it was interesting for me to compare tonight’s show to what I could remember of her earlier performance.

[Please consider supporting this publication by becoming a patron, and you can also support it by patronizing our online store. And one more way to support this work is to buy books through The Great God Pan is Dead’s bookstore. ]