Raisa Punkki Dance
"Salve Regina"
NOHspace
San Francisco, CA
January 17, 2016
by Rita Felciano
copyright © Rita Felciano 2016
Finnish American choreo- grapher Raisa Punkki borrowed the name for her latest choreography, "Salve Regina," from a medieval Christian prayer to the mother of Jesus. Since Islam also expresses great reverence for the one it calls Miriam, the reference makes sense. "Salve" is a mysterious one-hour, six-scene meditation on womanhood. Its subtext purports to consider why some cultures insist on hiding the female body, while others expose it. I am not sure whether that aspect was all that clearly realized. But Pukki deserves a Salve of her own because of the pristine use of her dancers, veiled or not. "Salve" suggested a quasi-mythic female power intimately connected to creation. The trajectory -- slim as it is -- could be tightened though Mark Hertenstein's billowing score gives the work a solid, much needed foundation.
Fanny Miettinen and Megan Hertensteiner in "Salve Regina"
Photo © Pak Han
Punkki's stunning opening solo has her in a darkly mottled shroud, buffeted by amorphous forces and trying hang on to definable shapes. She looked like matter struggling to become alive. When her bony fingers finally emerged, they formed the Sacral Chakra (associated with procreation) and out of her drooping veil she formed a baby that slipped out of her hands as she slithered off into darkness. These images were so short that they almost escaped your attention but they shone like sparks in the darkness.
Tall Jennifer Meek and Sarah Keeney's duet sent the two of them into large, running strides across the tiny space. They recalled Picasso's giant women from his neo-classical period -- unstoppable, bigger than the world they live in. Swinging their hips in voluminous skirts and staring into the space behind us, their hands spoke with gestures in the air and along their bodies. They struggled, fell but raised each other. Resting in wide and deep plies, I thought of them giving birth. But then all of a sudden they retired to pedestals on the sideline, veiled their faces and became carved monuments of mourning.
The sunniest section shows young Pyry Miettinen -- Pukki's son -- sitting on a box with sea gulls squawking overhead when Darius Sohei walked in with two boxes of his own. With Miettinen watching the grown up man, they moved closer together, Miettinen imitating Sohei, perhaps suggesting process of growing up. But then Sohei's duet with Keeney was an unending a struggle, including a slow motion fight, and ended in acquiescence when he pushed his head against her belly. Did we step here out of myth into reality?
"Salve's" most visually dramatic duet had Megan Hertensteiner and Pukki's small daughter, Fannie Miettinen, swathed in blood red fabric with the little girl becoming an incubus on her "mother's" back. She released yards and yards of red fabric that flowed like rivers of blood over Hertensteiner. That's why the gentle ending came as such a surprise. A very pregnant Mihyun Lee, in gossamer white, her black hair partially covering her face, dream-walked the diagonal, caressing to the child whose voice we had heard way back in the beginning of composer Hertensteiner's score.
"Salve" is dark and intimate but its finely crafted use of the dancing body resonates the way ancient stories and much told tales do.