What do you believe in? What scares you? What turns you on? And what is beauty? These are just some of the questions the Jess Curtis/Gravity troupe posed on a chalkboard—or alluded to—during the arc of their performance of Dances For Non/Fictional Bodies at Inkub8 last Friday night.

After experiencing Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies, the answers to these questions are even more elusive and unreliable now, especially in light of the fact that one question leads to another question which leads to yet another question, thereby making the process of answering those questions a mind-bending, and even farcical, thought-experiment. Questions were written down on chalkboard throughout the performance to show the impermanence and (d)evolutionary nature of our concept of beauty and the “self.”

Part I

The performance began with a cosmic landing—an alien or a human astronaut—who moved around the surface of the planet with forearm crutches. Her mission: return Godzilla (yes, Godzilla) to Earth? Or Circuslandia? As the astronaut exited the stage, the humans sprawled on the floor, breathing, readying their non/fictional bodies for what was to come—a circus, of course—came to life in a methodical, slow-paced fashion.

The dancers’ energy accelerated into a ballet of dress up (or undress down) and donned fat-suits, Speedos, man-suits, rain-suits, circus wear, a bunny-rabbit jockstrap and birthday suits. The forms masqueraded and roller-skated between objects and each other, a galaxy of the bizarre. The first half of the performance culminated in a human circus where humans played the animals who performed tricks on top of a refrigerator at the crack of a bullwhip. Did I forget to mention Jess Curtis peddled a stationary bike that powered a chain of white lights?

Part II

Fragmentation. That is the word that comes to mind when I think about the second half of the performance. Imagine a series of prismatic, surreal images layered on top of each other to create a whole that was/is never whole. The concept of “beauty” emerged from unlikely and ugly places. The astronaut opened Part II and shoved the string of white lights inside her space helmet. A Florence + the Machine lyric from the song “Cosmic Love” came to mind: I took the stars from our eyes, and then I made a map. In this case, the astronaut literally put the stars in her eyes and became the map.

Classically trained singer Claire Cunningham, who played the astronaut, removed her spacesuit, placed herself into a bathtub, and then performed a riveting aria while wearing boxer headgear. After the aria, the performance literally went down the tubes (in a good way) when Jess Curtis performed a karaoke version of “Light My Fire” by the Doors while doing a headstand inside of a toilet bowl—yes, a toilet bowl. He seemed so at ease singing from the toilet that I thought, just for a moment, that the we were upside down, not him. The performance concluded when the lights dimmed and Cunningham slowly made her way to the refrigerator where she slammed the door on Godzilla.

Humans are strange, haunting creatures prone to the bizarre. Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies asked the audience to deconstruct the concept of beauty and identity and to embrace the scary/not-so-scary bizarre. Jess Curtis/Gravity brought a gift to Miami. I ambled home with a piece of it.

Tigertail & the Florida Dance Association presented the Florida premiere of Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies.  For more information on Jess Curtis/Gravity please visit www.jesscurtisgravity.org.