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Milka is not a happy camper, even when she pirouettes…
Right from the gitgo we feel like Milka is on a forced march. She crosses the stage in very precise lines, steps, and angles. Later there are added gestures — some like blinking arrows that say tits and ass, as she brushes her body parts to the count while marching.
Milka seems to be systematically activating every part of her body. First there are legs marching . Her neck will crane— also to rhythm. Her pelvis tilts to the count too. It’s only after five minutes or so that we realize she isn’t just warming up. This is the dance— and it is increasingly taxing on her body.
Hypnotizing electronic music in the background— that she has composed for this work named Bob— feels like its on a continuous loop, even though it does move much as she is changing angles on the dance floor.
Though she’s on a finite stage, the feeling is more and more like she is holding our hands to take us neck high into a muddy bog. The dance is giving a physical voice to the demands on female dancers bodies. You better behave! It seems to be saying, and saying and saying.
Complexity especially comes in when different parts of her body move with different repeating rhythms and angles— as if she choreographed her ams as one dancer, her legs as another, her head yet another still. Large angled mirrors not only show us every view of her body, but also seem to multiply her into an ensemble, and not the solo that this work is.
At some point, she lets her pants down—but not off— to reveal g-string type underwear. It’s sexy but it’s also robotic. If you’ve been to that street in Tokyo where they sell sex dolls and games with sexpot anime characters, you know she’d fit right in. As the dance continues, her costume becomes de facto topless, except for a diaphanous patina of black silk mesh.
The stage darkens and fog machines seem to take over the dance— going on and off to the rhythms of the electronic sounds that are continuous. They seem to be the new dancer. When Djordjevich reappears she is clad in tight silver leather from head to toe. Her stilettos are at least 8 inches high. It’s the kind of outfit you see more on a drag queen than a female body most of the time.
And she’s still dancing! — mainly tiny steps in her impossible shoes.
We imagine it’s an unseen hand that has forced her into this garb. We KNOW this is the case when she begins to peel it all off— first the shoes, then the gloves, then top and bottom which become her twirling whips in the air—-always to the beat.
American Dance Festival Nurtures Bold Experimentation
In the post-performance discussion we get a picture of how Bob, the imagined alter ego driver of the dance, came to be. Djordjevich explains that her Serbian background exposed her to much folk dancing that repeats and repeats. This work, she explains, is rooted in these folk dances, and also with her fascination in how new things are born when the same thing is done again and again. She thinks of this work as an example of how minimalism can be maximalism at the same time. More, she thinks of this as a work-in-progress— gestating for more than two years so far and now deep into the world it has created for itself.
Bob breaks barriers precisely by seeming to build them into the dancer’s cage. Thought provoking!
RECOMMENDED
For more information visit the Milka Djordjevich website.
And to learn more about upcoming performances at the American Dance Festival website.
Photos by Laura Bartczak, courtesy of Milka Djordejevich and the American Dance Festival.
About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
