The nine-woman queer feminist circus-theater company known as Tangle is taking a trip through time with its newest show April 3-5 at Christ Church Neighborhood House.
In “Timelines,” company founder Lauren Rile Smith said the aerial-dance theater company meditates on female bodies in time.
“The highlight of our show is a queer time-travel fantasy about a 1950s secretary who daydreams of the distant future,” Smith said. “She ends up escaping to the future where people connect in radically different ways. He perceptions about gender and relationships all get questioned as she approached this future inspired by science fiction. In Tangle, we are always really focused on showcasing the diversity of women’s bodies and relationships. So ‘Timelines’ also includes dynamic aerial partnering that explores the relationships. That is always a theme for us. The show also takes a scientific view of time, including an act that depicts the evolution of life on the planet as it rises out of the ocean and a really fast-paced piece inspired by Einstein’s theory of relativity. It’s also personal, with a look at bodies showing aging as time passes in our lives.”
Smith added that the show delves into a number of stories and issues in ways that are sometimes subtle and other times obvious.
“We are always interested in the full range of women’s relationships and that range is in play in ‘Timelines. We have guest trapeze artists in our show and they have a dynamic trapeze duo they performed at the Topsy Turvy festival in San Francisco. That is more of an explicit love story. I think there is a strong queer subtext in our science-fiction piece but that is up for interpretation. Another piece that I love is about people meeting for the very first time and deciding what their relationship is going to be like. So there is a real range of interpretations, from the explicit to the more subtextual.”
With a number of stories intertwining in the show and all the aerial choreography, trapeze work and body contortion that goes with it, it’s no surprise that a show of this nature takes a while to pull together.
“The most time-consuming elements are our ensemble numbers,” Smith said. “In our science-fiction piece, everyone in Tangle has a role and it’s about the way that people connect and we are demonstrating that with a range of characters, from the 1950s secretary versus the people of the future. They are all interconnecting. We have all these ambitious ensemble numbers that take a lot of coordination both with the aerial choreography and to put the story together link to link.”
While Tangle incorporates their queer and feminist views in their performances, Smith said the group draws a wide range of people, some of whom are just dazzled by the artistry and physicality of their shows.
“Tangle attracts a really diverse audience, from people who are interested in fringe performance or sport to people who are drawn to our specific feminist message and maybe people who are excited to see someone upside-down,” she said. “So we’re seeing the radical potential to question our assumptions of what bodies can do or look like or what it is to be a female performer. We have this feminist backbone in every performance. We’re putting a diversity of gender presentations, relationships, sizes and shapes on stage in a way that is sometimes unusual for dance or theater.”
Tangle presents “Timelines” April 3-5 at Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St., as part of the 2014 Philly Queer Media Activism Series. For more information, visit www.tangle-arts.com.