"In Jessica Fudim's 'Venomous,' Medusa is Monster No More"
--SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"In Jessica Fudim's 'Venomous,' Medusa is Monster No More"
San Francisco Chronicle's Datebook Pick, Lily Janiak, June 6, 2023
photo credit: Kyle Adler
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
DATEBOOK PICK
Lily Janiak, June 6, 2023
In a projected sequence in Jessica Fudim’s dance-theater piece “Venomous,” some cut-outs of ancient Greek imagery appear like paper dolls on a felt board: a god bearing a trident, a plumed-helmeted warrior, a Parthenon-like temple, a woman whose face is obscured by hair. Then a snippet of text with ripped edges covers everything else: the dictionary definition of “ravish,” that normalizing, romanticizing euphemism.
Fudim’s solo work, on a double bill with Jesse Bie’s “Young Gods, Reimagined” at the San Francisco International Arts Festival, explores the myth of Medusa. Here, the serpent-haired woman is no monster. In one scene, she arrives at a house party giddy to cavort but then gets stuck mid-dance move; in another, she looks like she’s rolling around at the bottom of an empty glass.
“Are you satisfied with how she is commonly portrayed?” Fudim said in a statement. “I’m not. If we don’t like those representations, let’s change them.”
"Venomous": 8 p.m. Thursday, June 15; 3:30 p.m. Saturday, June 17. $25-$28. Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama St., S.F. www.sfiaf.org
DATEBOOK PICK
Lily Janiak, June 6, 2023
In a projected sequence in Jessica Fudim’s dance-theater piece “Venomous,” some cut-outs of ancient Greek imagery appear like paper dolls on a felt board: a god bearing a trident, a plumed-helmeted warrior, a Parthenon-like temple, a woman whose face is obscured by hair. Then a snippet of text with ripped edges covers everything else: the dictionary definition of “ravish,” that normalizing, romanticizing euphemism.
Fudim’s solo work, on a double bill with Jesse Bie’s “Young Gods, Reimagined” at the San Francisco International Arts Festival, explores the myth of Medusa. Here, the serpent-haired woman is no monster. In one scene, she arrives at a house party giddy to cavort but then gets stuck mid-dance move; in another, she looks like she’s rolling around at the bottom of an empty glass.
“Are you satisfied with how she is commonly portrayed?” Fudim said in a statement. “I’m not. If we don’t like those representations, let’s change them.”
"Venomous": 8 p.m. Thursday, June 15; 3:30 p.m. Saturday, June 17. $25-$28. Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama St., S.F. www.sfiaf.org
PAST PROJECTS INCLUDE:
"Written By Our Bones" workshop, Sonoma Community Center, 2023
As the Crow Flies, 2021
Sheepish, 2006; Photo Credit: Gabriel Diamond
Frank, 2019
Ocean Beach Dances, 2008; Photo Credit: Kari O'Donnell Otero
SF Pride Parade/The Experimental Performance Institute at New College of California, 2005
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Heartstring 2x4, 2009
Ocean Beach Dances, 2008; Photo Credit: Kari O'Donnell Otero
Cave In Cave Out, 2008
Clarion Alley Dances, 2008; Photo Credit: Kari O'Donnell Otero
SF Pride Parade/EHS Pilates, 2007
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