IN THE PROFESSIONAL ARENA

because she was

Choreography and Text by Cynthia Oliver
Music composed and performed by Jason Finkelman and Geoff Gersh
Costume by Adrienne McDonald

The Kitchen, New York, New York. 2001

because she was is the solo iteration of the larger evening-length work SHEMAD, a meditation on black womanhood and madness, Oliver summons the worlds of women where their critique of one another can move from vicious to tender to humorous. She evokes the myth of the Djablesse and calls madness diagnoses into question, perhaps considering it's deployment a container for women's supernatural powers.