On Saturday 20 May I’ll be accompanying veteran butoh master Joan Laage at the Chapel Performance Space in the Good Shepherd Center . Please join us.
This evening, directed by Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh and composer Amy Denio, and co-created with the performers, celebrates the wayward girls who lived in the Good Shepherd Center, their lives real and imaginary.
While attending a performance at the Chapel, which we do frequently, my husband exclaimed, “the house of the pregnant girls,” and I suddenly decided to create a piece inspired by the center’s history and occupants. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd order started in France, spread to the US and in 1890, a train brought five nuns through the forest and mountains to Seattle. The center provided shelter, education, and guidance to young girls so they could become caring, responsible, and moral young women. An emphasis on morality was most likely strongly linked to sexuality. Today’s increasing restrictions on sex education coupled with the denial of fluid gender identity are also burdened by what might be called the “moral imperative.” There is great political pressure on women concerning their rights as sexual beings, potential mothers, etc., with the self-determination of women’s bodies being eroded.
~ Choreographer/Director/Dancer Joan Laage
Amy Denio: voice, clarinet, accordion
Randy Shay: guitar, piano
Greg Campbell: French horn, percussion
Joey Largent: accordion
Sheri Brown & Robyn Bjornson: butoh dance
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