On Friday I went to a Cool Cleveland event and then saw the Momix dance group put on a modern dance performance entitled Opus Cactus. I’d never been to a dance performance before and this particular one was a good cherry-popper.
The Momix dancers give poise a badass connotation. To steal a phrase from Fight Club, they looked like they were carved from wood. And Tough! Some of the craziness they did made lactic acid burn in my muscles just watching. I also have a much better appreciation for the clichéd sexuality of a ‘dancer’s body’ that appears in so many lesser works of fiction. Anyway, I was expecting lost of desert southwest themes, and while they were present in glow-in-the-dark tumbleweed, cacti and Amerindian voice-overs the group used music that brought to mind hunters on the Kalahari, and the Australian Outback, and even Arabia through the songs of a muezzin. Most of the performance took place at night or at dawn, when the desert is most active. So it ended up, at least for me, being a performance that pointed out the vibrant theme of life that runs through all deserts. And I now know once and for all that dance theater isn’t for sissies. Hehe.