CATHERINE GALLANT

Catherine Gallant/Dance presented Escape from the House of Mercy at The Performance Project University Settlement. Choreographed and developed by Gallant with the performers, they explored the dark history of institutions like workhouses, poorhouses, and laundries, primarily for women and girls, in the US and Ireland. Combining spoken and sung text, video, props, and a diverse sound score, the performance took the audience through a 50-minute experimental journey. The real House of Mercy, located in Inwood Hill Park, NYC, was a workhouse for women, imprisoned for minor offenses like dancing or walking alone. The brutality towards women that took place there is central to the
work.

Escape from the House of Mercy was also adapted into a short dance film, “STONES: Whispers from the Workhouse”, which was shown at the end of the performance. It was a great addition, as the audience got to witness it in its embodied totality, then in a shorter form the concentrated vision. Both the performance and the film complimented one another, revealing ideas that may not have been fully realized otherwise.

To begin, the room goes dark and upon the back wall, an eerie film is projected. A lit doorway reveals dancers making their way through it, transcending into the surrounding darkness. Then, as if they passed through the screen door, they emerge from behind the projection wall. First to take the space is Gallant, singing. Dancers, covered in blue mesh, emerge behind her, slowly making their way into the space. As the music comes in, the dancers symbolically rip the fabric off of themselves frantically, setting the tone for the escapism in the work.

A contemporary duet transforms into a struggle between two of the performers. Then everyone else exits, only to return holding their bodies tightly. The light dims and this tightness closes in, as do the dancers to the spotlight in the center of the space. They begin circling, and whispering. It is eerie and confusing, until all of a sudden their bodies and voices break free in an overwhelming scream that caused a few (myself included) to jump in their seats. Immediately the lights came up and the scene shifted again, into phrase work that balanced a multitude of differing groups and duets taking place. They run to the walls, then run off, leaving only a few dancers who pull a long piece of blue mesh from stage left into the center.

With it, they create a cage almost, dancers entering, supporting its structure, until they are all within the 4-walled mesh design. Gallant returns and removes the material, leaving the dancers in the space. They form a semi-circle facing the audience, and yet not a single performer engages. On their knees they recite a poem, a dark, moody, disturbing poem about the “house”, each with an unidentified, absent gaze ahead of them.

The dancing continues like this in different episodic scenes, some of which are accompanied by footage projected onto the wall. The blue mesh lying on different structures outside, old footage of abandoned buildings, faces of women and girls. Performers sing, act, dance with props, throw props, emote; there is one section where a white button down shirt becomes a tethered, rope-like motif, dancers pulling into and away from it, trapped in the arms. Ultimately, Catherine Gallant/Dance used the intersection of multiple mediums of art making to transform a history into a current day recitation.

Film, movement, reenactment, acting, transforming, throwing, writhing, singing, vocalising, screaming, defying. These were tactics and tools used to share the story of a haunted past, that in many ways still bubbles up in today’s
society. It is works like these that continue to push the line between social movements and art, and bring voices to stories not always told.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Emma Edy Morris