Choreographing for "Into the Darkness"

By Justin Leaf

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Collective Unconscious Performance a couple times before, first on the sleeping beauty in the wood and then last year for Le Cirque Féerique. Now I’m making two new dances for their latest production Into the Darkness, coming to the Shakespearean Youth Theatre, November 15-24.

In all of these instances, I’ve had the opportunity to work in a realm that blends theatre, music, movement, and puppetry –– all of which interest me greatly. I especially love the blending of these mediums, as that’s something I’ve often explored through my independent work as a dancer, singer, and cabaret artist. Also, the theme of the work interests me, viewing classic fairy tale through a queer and feminist lens that often questions and subverts traditional gender roles. Now we’re talking!

For Into the Darkness, I’m creating two movement sequences that have me working closely with the performers to generate movement that integrates with the narrative and endeavors to reveal something more about the themes explored. 

For the first I’m creating an in-your-face drag-show tour-de-force for one of our leading ladies: the Troll Queen, played by Leif Jurgensen. It’s a good and tasty challenge for me, as in my own work in the realm of drag, I tend to veer away from the typical drag queen shenanigans. Creating something that would strongly refer to that genre while still feeling fresh and serving Leif’s character was a satisfying exploration, and I think we came up with something that will be a delectable diversion for audiences.

Rehearsal was lots of fun as I got to use some, shall we say, “colorful” language in my coaching that would be wholly inappropriate for any other kind of dance. And Leif brings his own “je ne sais quoi” to it that will surely make it all totally sickening (in a good way, I assure you). And you’ll all be like “fierce bitch werk queen” and all that jazz.

The second dance closes the show, so we knew it would be important to get it just right. Accompanied by the sublime Rachmaninov “Vocalise,” the actors, Kayla Dvorak Feld and Boo Segersin, essentially go from being best friends to falling in love. Realizing the weight of the material, we set aside extra rehearsal time to develop it. To develop the duet, the performers would need to try things out with each other in the space, rather than me coming into the first rehearsal with a set plan for exactly what it would be.

To our surprise, the dance sort of fell into place, largely thanks to Kayla and Boo, who were brave and adventurous. Their actual friendship served the intimacy of the process, and we found moments of subtlety and power that will make for stunning conclusion to what is sure to be a fascinating show.

Into the Darkness will be performed November 15-24 at Shakespearean Youth Theatre (550 Vandalia Street, Suite 306, St. Paul, MN 55114). More information can be found here.

Tickets