the only real background i had about maureen fleming was that she "can do amazing things with her body." and, while this was certainly true, there are a lot of people who can do more amazing things with their bodies, the cirque du soleil performers, for example. her work is based in butoh and at first seemed to have a strong sense of artistic integrity. however, the evening ranged from being sculpturally breathtaking to blantanly cheesy. there seems to be a fine line. in the mother child section, 2 projections of her movement (slightly different from one another) complimented her movement on stage to give the illusion of the single body on stage being enwrapped by the projection which was nearly identical. the effect conveyed the entanglement of ourselves and maybe in fleming's mind the entanglement of identity between mother and child. this worked. the last section, however, did not. here fleming chose to break from the concentrated precise movement of the evening to dance around with a large piece of chifon. once again the overlap of projected movement on the single body was used, but in the case, it seemed unecessary or at least the desired effect wasn't clear. it almost seemed like she said forget this, i'd rather be out dancing around on the beach with a scarf loving life. fine, but do it on your own time. by the end, i was left unconvinced about the value of the work. i couldn't pinpoint what would make another similar piece better or worse, much in the same way cirque du soleil shows start to look the same once you learn the vocabulary and come to accept that people can do amazing things with their bodies.
maureen fleming, decay of the angel, cutler majestic theater
february 20