Title: A Hot Topic

Premiere: March 1991, Ann Arbor Dance Works, Studio A Theater (Betty Pease Studio Theater), Dance Building, Ann Arbor. Funded by the UM Institute for the Humanities as part of their “Histories of Sexuality” theme semester.

Text: “The Female Body” by Margaret Atwood

Dancers: Gay Delanghe, Jessica Fogel, Lynn Slaughter

Narrator: Patty Seoh

Visual design: Susannah Keith

Lighting design: Mary Cole

Description: This was a trio set to text by Atwood that had been published that year in the Michigan Quarterly Review. It was very difficult to get Atwood’s permission to use the text for the performance, as she did not approve of her writing being translated into other media; I did not get permission until a few days before the performances. A clothesline of women’s undergarments hung above the dancers, who otherwise wore black unitards. During the dance, two women (including visual designer Susannah Keith) hung up the clothes on the clothesline. The movement reflected the sardonic wit of the text. As described by Jewel Medley, “Using the witticisms, ironic humor and autobiographical excerpts which characterize her uniquely poignant style of writing, [Atwood] introduces a collage of seven definitions for the female form. Rife with feminism and sarcastic metaphor, this jaunt into various points on the social inequality of the sexes brings to light many hypocrisies held against the ‘weaker sex’ today.”(https://essayfrolic.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/on-margaret-atwoods-the-female-body/)

Correspondence with Margaret Atwood for permission to use text

Program

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