Dance Review: In Body Parts, Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg gets personal
The founder of Tara Cheyenne Performance tackles the fraught topic of body image with her signature wry and razor-sharp humour
Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg layers her theatricality with empathy in Body Parts. Tara Cheyenne Performance/Facebook.
Reviewed on May 15. Body Parts, a Tara Cheyenne Performance production presented by Progress Lab 1422, airs again on May 16 at 2 pm PDT. The film screening opens with a live intro and is followed by a moderated discussion about body image.
OVER THE YEARS, Vancouver performer Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg has brought to life a wildly diverse range of characters, from a phony talk-show host in Nick and Juanita to Highgate’s cynical undertaker to bANGER’s metalhead to a nerdy kid named Norman whose imagination takes him to a world of TV crime dramas after his babysitter locks him in the basement (Goggles).
Body Parts is her most personal work yet.
The streaming interdisciplinary solo is ostensibly about self-image, with the veteran dance-theatre artist opening up about her own ongoing struggles. Friedenberg shares personal experiences about everything from diet apps to being a 48-year-old mother who, yes, is still dancing.
Her honesty is refreshing.
The founder of Tara Cheyenne Performance (who directed the piece with Josh Martin, Kate Franklin, and David Cooper) takes the topic of body acceptance much further than skin deep, imbuing her theatricality with empathy. Through her signature wry, razor-sharp, self-deprecating, and gut-wrenching humour, she intelligently illustrates how the way we look and feel is tied into feminism, history, politics, privilege (or lack thereof), and so much more.
As a prop, Friedenberg has a number of pieces of clothing she borrowed from dancer friends—items that they didn’t feel good in. (there’s a “bathing-suit graveyard.”) Having tied them all together to make a long rope, she weaves the clothes into her choreography.
When she confronts the question that almost every woman hears at some point after having a child—“Did you get our body back?”—it’s cathartic.
The ways in which Friedenberg and her collaborators approach the COVID-era livestream production are clever and compelling; without giving too much away, suffice to say that manages to connect with audiences through the screen. Savvy film editing (Cande Andrade), smart lighting (James Proudfoot with Taylor Janzen), and Cooper’s inventive camera work all give audiences a fresh experience in this new reality of watching the performing arts online at home. Marc Stewart’s sound design hits just the right tone, especially in the work’s contemplative closing piano composition.
Whether she’s commenting on the ludicrousness of expectations related to a dancer’s “physique” or divulging why one of her boobs is bigger than the other, Friedenberg comes at Body Parts from the heart.
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