Porno Death Cult

No more performances

Posted March 9, 2014

I love Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg’s mind; it goes into such dark and funny corners. Like her supple dancer’s body, it turns on itself, wickedly undercutting what she has just created.

Example: Maureen, Friedenberg’s 41-year-old fearful, deeply Christian character says, “I want to be filled up.” Don’t we all relate to that longing to be “filled up” with ecstasy or joy or something? But Maureen goes on, “Filled like a bowl. A bowl of fruit. With some tropical fruit in it.” And poof! The spell is broken; the image is suddenly ordinary and sort of silly.

Inspired by her 2010 walk through Southern France and Spain along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, Friedenberg’s solo performance explored some of our desperate efforts to achieve transcendence; along the way she implied religiosity and eroticism are two sides of the same coin. Maureen’s usual religious fervor, for example, can – and does – become sexual while she waits in vain for guests to arrive. She has planned a party with “bread and loads and loads and loads of fishes. Well, tinned salmon,” but when no one turns up, she begins fantasizing a lover, losing her “knickers” and “waking up at 4:30 AM” with lipstick on her “bum”.

In this solo piece – part dance, part drama – Friedenberg focuses on three characters. As well as Maureen, there is the ever-smiling yoga instructor beaming and issuing a saccharine, “Welcome. Welcome.” From the lotus position she spouts the platitudinous, “Rise above all your mistakes. Rise above this material body. Rise up above all the bad decisions that” (slyly accusing) “you’re making right now.” There’s that wicked little undercut again. “I’m filled with oneness. Namaste.”

 

And then there’s the evangelical preacher pouring out fire and brimstone and nonsensical admonitions. Phrases like “slapping itself on the bottom of what is not.” Or “And, I say. And. And. And. And.”

Friedenberg’s dancing ranged from awkward, jittery, twitchy, out-of-body jerking to glorious long-armed, long-legged reaching and gravity defying held positions. It was, at times, so joyful it was almost unbearably beautiful. There was a little hand movement that Maureen repeatedly made that broke my heart every time. Not only is Friedenberg’s body expressive – right down to her bare toes – but she also has a very expressive face that, like her body, can slide from cocky confidence to quivering insecurity under your gaze.

Mickey Meads’ set – a crazy and seemingly unrelated assortment of dozens and dozens of mounted photographs flanking a set of red-carpeted stairs – drew the curious audience down to the stage after the show to take it all in.

Marc Stewart provided the music that went back and forth from big and ‘churchy’ to hot and sexy. James Proudfoot’s lighting picked out various photographs or spotlighted Friedenberg who, for much of the time was dressed in impeccable white trousers, shirt, jacket and vest. On occasion, Proudfoot turned a beam of light on us: it was as if the eye of God was peering down on us, judging us and judging Friedenberg’s audacity that included Maureen’s momentary defiance, “Kneel. Kneel. Turn. Turn. Pray. Pray. Drink your pee.”

At the Firehall Arts Centre under Marcus Youssef’s direction, Porno Death Cult was intense, mysterious and funny; above all, it was brave.

At the end, Friedenberg took a seat in the theatre: “Is this seat taken?” she asked the audience member in the next seat. And then she sat with her gaze fixed expectantly on the stage until the lights very slowly went down. The implication was that theatre is yet another avenue to transcendence, that theatre offers a sense of communion. Friedenberg, nothing short of brilliant, continues to seek and to find transcendence in performance. Praise the Lord.