Paufve/Dance in the Premiere of 'That Obscure Subject of Desire' July 24, 2009

Innovative Bay Area choreographer Randee Paufve will explore the paradoxical nature of love and desire in the premiere of "That Obscure Subject of Desire" New Dances by Randee Paufve. Paufve and a pan-generational cast ranging in age from their 20's to their 70s will plumb the depths of the subject from love's sensual imbalance to the prickly heat of passions and the space of desire. "That Obscure Subject of Desire" is an evening of solos, duets and a roving women's quartet, interwoven to create a landscape of evocative images and textures punctuated by moments of raw physicality, all without a fixed narrative structure.

"Romantic love is a fleeting construct, an enticing, yet unsustainable ideal," says Paufve. "Real, lasting human love is smaller, humbler; yet romantic love ideals remain a pervasive cultural obsession. Why? As a gateway to understanding the compelling conundrum of modern love, I turned to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, in which adolescents experience the first glittering chimera of romance, with destructive results, yet teach us about enduring love. Together with the dancers I worked with the play as a springboard. Much of the work was founded through an initial rehearsal period of improvisation, during which we drew images, metaphors and text into the body and out again, seeking places where movement met words, evoking the kinesthesia of Shakespeare's writing, and allowing embodied movement to create the foundation for the work."

"That Obscure Subject of Desire" takes risks in placing three generations of dancers together onstage to explore ideas about desire and sexuality. Such innovative casting undermines the invisibility that comes with middle age by attacking the retreat from performance that dance artists often submit to--a trend that serves to impoverish dance. The work exposes a range of bodies and perspectives through the honesty of movement, revealing the hot, naughty vitality that can exist with any age.

$15-$18.

Official Website: http://www.paufvedance.org/html/paufve_enter.html