Dance review: Raven flies by with stunning circus arts, deeply personal stories from working moms
Berlin-based still hungry’s three performers dazzle as they share intimate feelings about motherhood and careers
Raven.
The Cultch presents Raven at the York Theatre to April 30
YOU WON’T SEE anything like circus artist Anke van Engelshoven’s solo aerial-straps number from Raven in a Cirque du Soleil show. Clad in silver sequined pants, a silver top, and feathery golden jacket, the Berlin-based performer spins with centrifugal force high above the floor and swoops forward and backward like a high-speed pendulum—all with a fierce funk to a pounding dance-club beat and a lit cigarette in her mouth. She’s one of three women who make up the Berlin-based collective still hungry who shares personal stories of life as a professional circus performer and as a mother in the stunning piece now having its Vancouver premiere.
Just prior to her whirring suspended solo, van Engelshoven recalls in an audio clip how the day she gave birth to her first child was the day her phone stopped ringing with job offers. The scene is one example of how motherhood has impacted the women’s professional lives and then some; van Engelshoven admits sometimes missing the days of dancing, smoking, and kissing with strangers. At times the three artists address the audience directly, sharing deeply personal stories about their inner conflict that so many women can relate to: the desire to keep working in the field they love while fulfilling their dream of raising a family, stumbling along the way.
Raven takes its name from a derogatory German term to describe selfish, neglectful mothers—notably working moms. A seamless mashup of dance, theatre, comedy, and circus, the hour-long work flies by, sometimes quite literally when the performers dazzle in mid-air.
We hear how Lena Ries, a contortionist with two kids, still loves being on tour away from her family, in between moments where she’s bringing her toes to her nose backward over her head or folding, crossing, and twisting her arms in ways that simply make no sense—to the sounds of so many ewws and ahhs from the captivated opening-night crowd.
Romy Seibt is a 49-year-old mother of two and master of the vertical rope. Her opening solo where she climbs up and hooks herself on the strand, effortlessly executing long lines around it as if it’s a sturdy pole, is graceful and mesmerizing. She also juggles rope—or, here, a long filament made up of what look like pieces of laundry tied together, the act reflecting the whiplash that comes from being pulled in so many different directions. Seibt reveals some of the scorn she was subjected to after training on the cord that hangs from the rafters while pregnant and falling. Someone suggested this could explain why her son “has so many problems”.
Judgment from others is a key theme in Raven, ink-black feathers being a recurring motif. The performers turn those flying plumes into a reclamation of power and independence, donning jackets covered in quills the colour of the night sky for an intense vertical-rope trio that’s positively electrifying.
Raven’s circus-rooted artistry is sublime, yet the real beauty of the work, made in collaboration with acclaimed British contemporary-theatre director and performance artist Bryony Kimming, is that there’s so much substance behind the stunts.
We get to know these three individuals on different levels: as passionate professionals who carry guilt for the commitment to their craft and careers; women who are struggling with body image; moms who are worried they’re not doing enough or that they’re not doing things right. Loaded with warmth, charm, and spectacularly beautiful physicality, it’s a celebration of women’s bodies and capabilities and of the arts themselves.
Raven.
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