“Confusion seething […] sometimes tough, […] sometimes softer, and sometimes indeterminate ”
—The Dance Insider
Orlando (2002)
Solo, 12 minutes
Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s gender-probing novel Orlando, this dance explores sexuality, transformation, and history. Jody Sperling portrays the sexually-ambiguous protagonist first in his youth as an aristocratic, gallivanting male in the Elizabethan era and then imagines his subsequent transformation into a woman.
Among other sources, the movement for the dance draws on galliards (jumping dances) described in Thoinot Arbeau’s 1589 Orchésographie. Quentin Chiappetta’s original score features driving percussion rhythms while Michelle Ferranti’s daring costume design highlights the hero/ine’s blurring of sexual identity.
CHOREOGRAPHY/DANCER: Jody Sperling
ORIGINAL SCORE: Quentin Chiappetta
COSTUMES: Michelle Ferranti
LIGHTING: David Ferri
“As Woolf’s gender-shifting hero-heroine, the corseted Sperling dons a jockstrap and makes sure it shows through her bloomers like a codpiece. Sometimes she’s tough, lashing the air with a stick, sometimes softer, and sometimes indeterminate as she jumps through a modern equivalent of the Elizabethan galliard. You feel confusion seething, as if her sensibilities were changing in spite of her.”
–Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice