by Leigh Witchel
A 97 year old idea inspired a 29 year old artist. Kia LaBeija, a visual artist, performer and once Overall Mother of the Royal House of LaBeija, created her own riff on the “Black Act” of Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet” and did right by it.
The “Triadic Ballet” premiered in Stuttgart in 1922, with music by Paul Hindemith. Like the Bauhaus, it was a celebration of the intersection of machinery and man. You can see a reconstruction, with recomposed music, filmed in 1970 here.
LaBeija, whose mother was Filipino American and father is African American, caught the parallels between the masque and mechanical pageantry of the Triadic Ballet, and the elaborate fantasy and costumes of contemporary house and ballroom.
The seating at Performance Space New York was set up in a U shape, allowing for a long runway of performance. The audience sat together without chairs on the risers, as if the space had been thrown together impromptu. It felt like a community center turned into a nightclub, and the crowd was young, diverse and dressed for a night out.
The door closed and the drummer, Warren Benbow (LaBeija’s father) sat down. There was a noise like running water, and a bell rang as it became dark and the first costumed performer, LaBeija, appeared, dressed by designer Kyle Luu. LaBeija was completely enclosed by the costume, a red, three-tiered swirl that used wire and stretch fabric to economically but fully distort the body. This looked like a glittery riff on one of the first costumes in The Black Act, which had a spiral skirt, and no sparkles.
The performance, like Schlemmer’s, was as much masque as dance, but also contemporary drag ball. LaBeija walked down the thin lit corridor, posturing. She walked the perimeter of a taped labyrinth path; a moment from the original, though there it was a curved spiral.
Two mirrored creatures in red entered, Daniella Agosto and Selena Ettienne, with mirrors on their bodies, padded distortions at their hips and exposed stomachs like fertility goddesses. They leaned back and posed as if shooting one another – slow shots, blowing on the gun: a drag battle via “Charlie’s Angels” in slow motion. The music, played by Benbow and composer Kenn Michael (LaBeija’s brother) quieted and Agosto and Ettienne leaned against one another, clasped hands and lay down.
When the tempo sped up, three figured entered. Taína Larot and Terry Lovette entered in white with distortions that quoted Schlemmer – padded spheres on the arm. But, where Schlemmer was trying to disguise the body entirely, turning it into a mechanical object, Luu padded hips and emphasized curves. Instead of making the bodies more machine-like, she made them hyper-feminine. In the middle Khristina Cayetano wore a black tulle skirt and stayed aloft on pointe like a mechanical doll – a lift from Schlemmer. Once again Luu put spin on the ball: the pointe shoes were sequin-encrusted. Cayetano tiptoed at the perimeter.
The lights changed and we heard a thumping bass. LaBeija reentered, wearing a body suit and bodice for another runway walk, and started to deconstruct the grids and paths on the floor, pulling up the tape, wadding it into a ball, doing it again. The women made a ceremony of it, all the masking tape blossoms brought to LaBeija to form a bouquet.
The rest of the cast surrounded her in a circle and passed around another new roll of tape. LaBeija started to lay it down, marking out a line leading out of the theater as the lights went down. She directed the videographer out of the way, and Benbow drummed to follow her movements out the door. The others joined her and the door closed to end the show – though it felt as if it could have merely moved to a new locale we couldn’t see.
Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet” was made at Germany’s most equivocal era. The artistic expression and freedom of the Weimar Republic came amid economic chaos. Germany defaulted on reparations payments from World War I; the mark became essentially worthless and hyperinflation spiraled out of control. The walls closed in slowly. Dismissed from teaching by the Nazis in 1933, Schlemmer’s work was exhibited in 1937 as Degenerate Art. He spent until his death in 1943 shielded internally from further persecution by working with other Bauhaus artists and designers in a laboratory that tested historical paint and lacquer techniques run by the philanthropist Kurt Herbert.
LaBeija’s Black Act was about 40 minutes, as opposed to Schlemmer’s 10: all three parts of the whole ballet as reconstructed in the ‘70 film were half an hour. LaBeija’s version downplayed industrial technology and amped up the pageantry. In this centennial of the Bauhaus, props to her for repurposing that aesthetic for herself and her community.
copyright © 2019 by Leigh Witchel
“Untitled, The Black Act” – Kia LaBeija
Performance Spaced New York, Manhattan, NY
November 7, 2019
Cover: Taína Larot, Khristina Cayetano, and Terry Lovette in “Untitled, The Black Act.” Photo © Paula Court.
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