One Good Quote: Nora Sharp's Small Boobs

Nora Sharp. Photo by Matthew Gregory Hollis.

In Fall 2017, Life as a Modern Dancer launched a new concept for post-performance discussion and writing. The goals are multi-fold:

• What are new ways to invite post-performance writing (since so few publications now print dance reviews, and there are fewer and fewer dance critics in the United States)?
• How can choreographers hear and read more from audience members about their impressions and experiences of dance events?
• Can we offer new mechanisms for choreographers to gather language about their work, to further their work and to promote their work? 

The premise is simple. If you attended the performance of Nora Sharp's Small Boobs at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley on November 9 and 10, 2018, please take a few minutes here to leave a comment. Write down images, impressions, appreciations, and questions from the performance. These can be words, phrases, or a few sentences. Then please sign it with your name and a descriptor, such as:

Jill Randall, Director of Life as a Modern Dancer

Chris Randall, dance enthusiast

Reed Randall, first-time audience member 

We thank you for your time, support, and thoughtfulness. Here's to more dialogue, more reflection, and more writing on the dance performance experience. As choreographer Mariah Steele noted, we are "democratizing dance criticism."

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Comments

[Jill Randall]

I got to experience Nora Sharp's solo show, Small Boobs, at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center on Friday night. Many appreciations here.

-I loved being in a full room and laughing together. More levity please.
-Thank you to Nora for an open heart, vulnerability, presence, and an offering. An opening...
-I loved how the parts made the whole - words, stories, laughter, light, darkness, sound, props, movement. Dancing in service to the story. Dancing as one of the many components of our story, our being.

I look forward to seeing Nora again very soon!

Jill Randall, Artistic Director of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center
and Blog Director of Life as a Modern Dancer

[Rebecca Johnson]

I think solo work can draw audiences out of themselves and into the world of the performer. This is the point, right? We learn about the person, their story, their experience. What was moving for me is that Nora's performance took me into their world, but then reflected back so much at me about myself. By seeing and witnessing Nora I was able to be witness in a deeper way to some of my own inner Nora: tender, funny, smart, vulnerable, witty, sexual, bold, abstract and lively. I thank you for that - moving, powerful, courageous and connected.

Rebecca Johnson

[D]

I very much enjoyed the humorous stories in the earlier section of the evening, but the last section has really stuck with me. Nora's soothing voice telling vivid second-person stories in the darkness put me in a state of such deep relaxation that I didn't stay to chat more than a couple of minutes afterwards. The closing story felt simultaneously universal and personal, not to mention honest and hopeful, even while it acknowledged the dark times we are now living in. I hope we can all find the other options.
-Sally

[Ann DiFruscia]

Nora is Nora through and through. In a conversation with her in the lobby of Shawl-Anderson, I'm struck by her elegant, gracious nature and austere beauty. Her compelling humility and simplicity is multifarious, and I'm drawn in. She speaks her truth, and I believe her.

On stage, in her show, "Small Boobs", Nora shines in much the same way. Her stage persona is not different - just amplified. I was totally engrossed from the show's opening of shit-kicking, balls-to-the-wall, raucous dancing to the almost primal ending of audience in darkness while Nora spoke slow, low, and deliberate words of comfort and concern, of wonderings and clarity - waking us to empathy, connection, and most importantly our very selves.

The journey was not linear - nor is life. Nora is vibrant, brave, and captivating in her smart, informal, incisive, fast stand-up comedy routine that erupted unexpectedly on the heels of the opening dance. She was swift, shape-shifting from place to place on stage all the while. At times, she would break-out of her stand-up role and in sharp contrast suddenly get conversational and intimate - moving closer to the audience for emphasis.

Through spoken word, song, music of her own making, piles of clothes (arranged and rearranged), and tender, wistful, endearing stories of childhood, donuts, relationships, family, transhood, and self-reflection, she fashioned exquisite metaphors into the marrow and guts of our human frailty, lush power, and longing for community. Thank you Nora for this beautiful and seminal work!