Title: BEAST

Premiere: July 24, 1980, Barn Theater, The Yard, Chilmark, Massachusetts. Subsequent performances at The Riverside Dance Festival, January 1981

Performers: Connie Chin, Catlin Cobb, Jessica Fogel, Mickey McLaughlin

Duration: 20 minutes

Music:  Sound collage by Paul Epstein and Jessica Fogel

Photography: Chuck Saaf and Al Alfaro

Description: BEAST is a quartet in which I explored the ways girls and young women negotiate their evolving sexuality as they come of age, bombarded with media images and the tyrannies of the male gaze. I made this on the heels of a thoroughly feminist education at Barnard, and at a time when the group Women Against Pornography was active in New York City, and Helmut Newton’s high fashion pornographic images of women in stillettos were reviled by feminists.  In this period, I was surprised to learn that many American males developed their sexuality viewing pornographic photos in mainstream magazines like Hustler, Penthouse and Playboy. These phenomena fueled my investigations for this dance.  I created the first draft of the dance while a choreographer in residence at The Yard, in Martha’s Vineyard.

No videos of the work exist, since the video was ruined in storage, so I have tried to provide a detailed account here.

Within the work, three dancers (Catlin Cobb, Mickey McLaughlin and myself) are seen in counterpoint with a fourth woman, Connie Chin. Connie carries a slide projector slung over her shoulder in a harness, and maneuvers a long extension cord as she traverses the stage, accosting the trio with images of the three that mirror their dancing. Interspersed with the slide images of the dancers are images of a plastic toy version of King Kong, whose enlarged and menacing visage fills the backdrop. The slide images are projected onto a roll of 10-foot wide white photo paper that hangs from the ceiling upstage center down to the downstage edge of the stage.

The dancers begin barefoot, dressed in black leotards and tights, and they put on and take off items of clothing as the work evolves. Evoking young girls, the trio picks up pre-set dresses and skirts from the floor, holding these up against their bodies like paper doll outfits. Then they animate the clothing pieces, running with them, swirling and tossing them in the air with a wild and abandoned physicality. Eventually the dancers brandish the clothing in the air in a unison phrase in pathways that spell the word “birds,” (perhaps my secret code for freedom and self —”Fogel” means “bird” in German.) Next the dancers perform a ritual of getting dressed and primping,  in the spirit of young teens, helping each other with zippers and buttons, their actions performed with a hyper-excitement of preparing to go out on the town. 

Once outfitted (in a red miniskirt, a wet-look purple mini dress, and a black and white polka dot dress) the dancers traverse a diagonal from upstage right to downstage left, along which have been placed six high heel shoes. The dancers don the heels one at a time, tottering slightly and supporting each other, retreating and advancing with a sense of fear and anticipation as they take on their emerging womanhood.  During this section, the music is a collage of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms overlaid with Balinese monkey chant music. From there the dancers begin to vamp and pose.   They put their hair into high pony tails. Catlin and Jessica add pre-set patent leather black belts to their dress outfits. Mickey mimes putting on lipstick. Catlin and Jessica take off their patent leather belts and slither them like snakes on the floor, before fastening them around their necks as leashes. Mickey takes hold of the leashes and walks Jessica and Catlin like dogs, while they nip at her heels.  

Pre-set at the edge of the stage downstage center are three 2-inch plastic King Kong windup toys, which walk and spit fire. These were being sold in novelty shops in the Union Square neighborhood of NYC in this period.  After the dog walk, the dancers approach the windup toys and squat in their high heels, holding the King Kongs in their palms, scrutinizing the beast with reverence, wonder, sympathy, and a sense of power. It is a reversal of the movie image where King Kong holds Ann Darrow in his palm. During this scene in the dance, dramatic soundtrack from the 1980 remake of the movie King Kong is heard in the score, with Jessica Lange screaming to King Kong:  “Put me down!  Put me down! Please put me down!” The dancers wind up the toys and place them on the floor, watching them walk off the stage and fall to the ground below. The dancers scream as the beasts fall and then look at the audience in horror.  Blondie’s song, “Living in the Real World” comes on and the dancers strut around the stage like windup dolls, moving in right angle pathways, while removing the belts/leashes from their necks, taking off their dresses, skirts and heels, taking down their pony tails, and returning to their original black leotard and tights.  The Blondie song ends and silence ensues. The dancers sit with legs wide and gaze forward, their affect confrontational, poised to turn the tables. Connie projects an identical image of the three directly over their live image.

Connie Chin’s projections then switch to empty slide frames that create a rectangular screen. It’s as if all the furniture has been removed from the room, the rug pulled out from under. Connie advances the empty frames repeatedly, as the trio picks up plastic mechanical windup birds which have been pre-set upstage center. (These mechanical birds were also being sold in novelty shops in Union Square at this time; they could be wound up and then released to take short flights through the air. ) The stage remains stark and silent, except for the steady mechanical rhythm of Connie advancing the empty slides. In the rectangular frames of projected light, the dancers begin to reconstruct their images on their own terms. The dancers walk downstage center and place the birds on the floor. They lie on their backs and arch their chests, and flap their arms like stiff wings, their shadows reflected in the rectangular light of the empty slide frames upstage center. They then sit up in fourth position, each picking up a bird and triggering the bird’s wings, which flap noisily while held in their hands. They do not release the birds. The dance ends with this image. This dance is directly followed by the new work Shard, which continues where Beast leaves off.

Fogel choreography journal notes 1

Fogel choreography journal notes 2

Fogel choreography journal notes 3

Vineyard Gazette review

The Grapevine review

The Yard premiere performance program July 24, 25, 26, 1980

Flyer Riverside Dance Festival 1981

Press release Riverside Dance Festival 1981

Riverside Dance Festival program 1981