Back from the World

“What Dreams May Come”, “Where Women Don’t Dance”

Nejla Yatkin / NY2Dance 

Dance Place

Washington, DC

April 30, 2016

 

by George Jackson

© 2016 by George Jackson

 

A dozen years ago, a newcomer caught Washington’s dance eye. Intense, even when standing still, she moved with concentrated force whether flamenco, modern dance or balletic styling was called for. Soon she was choreographing portraits of problematic women – such as Mata Hari – for herself. She showed these throughout the country and won attention for what seemed a fresh approach to sensuality and protest. More recently, Yatkin has toured the world. From dancing and teaching in more than 20 different countries, Yatkin returned to Washington this past weekend with a long solo and a movie about her globe trotting. 

 

Nejla Yatkin

 

Time hasn’t diminished the impact Yatkin makes generating tension in space, mood for the music’s durations and a character that viewers find intriguing. She still molds and recasts her torso with clarity. Those long legs have remained strong. The arms range over a spectrum of feelings from anguish to shy confidence. Her “Dreams” dance is built of two bigger parts. In the first and longer section, to chiming fragments of sound, Yatkin is veiled. The black cloth that covers much of her can be seen as a shroud but also as a larval sheath she unravels with effort, slowly stretching it behind her as she proceeds from right to left across the stage. Her journey encompasses many sorts of motion. There is creeping, crouching, crawling, collapse, awkward stretching, forced turning, distorted stepping. Each action and every pause seems constrained. One can not see this woman’s face. When it isn’t behind cloth, she covers it with her hands. Even when the arms and hands are thrust aside, the mouth is sealed with black tape. 

 

In the second, shorter section of “Dreams” there is tentative hope. The music is more lyrical, the movement has some flow, body placement is straighter and one can see all of the woman’s features. Undoubtedly, Yatkin wants clarity for her message about women’s lives in much of the world. And, she also means to show the variety of her movement vocabulary. However, I didn’t see a particular order in that variety. Was the subsection in which she interacted with the audience necessary? Washington viewers are likely to compare Yatkin’s “Dreams” with another solo for a veiled woman - “Khybet” by Dana Tai Soon Burgess. Yatkin’s telling  is bold, Burgess’s is subtle. 

 

The movie is Nel Shelby’s collage about Yatkin’s life and art. Clips of her performing, rehearsing, teaching and touring in Honduras, Panama and Salvador during 2010 are intercut with Yatkin’s  autobiographical reminiscences as a Turkish female born and trained in Germany, who then settled in the USA.