INTERVIEW: New dance-theater piece reexamines ‘Streetcar’
Photo: Performers with the Et Alia Theater Company bring to life Stella, Come Home. Photo courtesy of Et Alia / Provided by press rep with permission.
Et Alia Theater recently premiered Stella, Come Home, a unique dance-theater piece inspired by Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. The show is being billed as an interpretation of the classic play through movement and dance, employing the artistry of the theater company’s ensemble of international women, according to press notes. The show recently ran at the Vino Theater in Brooklyn, and now it will play the HERE Arts Center in Manhattan, Aug. 6-7.
The show is directed and choreographed by the SarAika Movement Collective (funded by Aika Takeshima and Sara Pizzi), and features performers Ana Moioli, Giorgia Valenti, Israel Harris, Luísa Galatti and Maria Müller. These New York performances are presented in partnership with the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with the performers and devisers of the piece, who answered the questions as a collective. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What inspired you to take another look at A Streetcar Named Desire?
Maria Müller, one of Et Alia’s co-artistic directors, was inspired by D’Ale Noastre, directed by Gigi Caciuleanu, a show she watched in her home country, Romania. From this, she got the idea to devise a piece in which the international women of Et Alia Theater would reinterpret a classic American play by drawing parallels between the plot and their narratives as immigrant women. The story would be told through their foreign bodies while dancing to music from their own countries.
This is to say that we were set on the concept before specifically choosing A Streetcar Named Desire. After considering a couple of other plays, we concluded that we needed one that was easily recognizable by all types of audiences, and because of the famous film adaptation with Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire made the most sense. It is not only popular, but it also contains themes such as home and being estranged from family — which are two main inspirations at the core of Et Alia Theater’s art making.
How would you describe what the audience will experience at Stella, Come Home? Is it dance? Theater?
It’s both! It’s dance because everything is told through movement. There is very little dialogue (only a few words/phrases), and we are constantly moving. Our directors/choreographers Sara and Aika made sure that every movement has a purpose and that we are telling the story through our bodies. It’s theater because it has conflict, characters, and the plot of A Streetcar Named Desire can still be followed. We really hope the audience will be moved by our show, will celebrate our cultures alongside us and will come out of it having a better understanding of our struggles as immigrants.
What do you think your piece says about contemporary times?
Classics become classics because they speak to what is everlasting about the human condition. By revisiting Williams’ profound depiction of Blanche Dubois, a dislocated woman who fights to hold on to her heritage and dreams, and Stella Kowalski, who tries to bring harmony into an irreparable clash, our company of international women connects our contemporary experience to the eternal, universal human struggle. In a globalized world where mysoginy and patriarchy persist as some of the most transcultural ideologies, every woman is Blanche — we are all covered in layers of longing and loss, stigma and discrimination, displacement and isolation.
Like her, we are outsiders going through the painful struggle of letting go of our past — in our case, our Brazilian, Italian and Romanian backgrounds. We are going through the collective process of reimagining what our lives can be while another foreign reality grows around us. Is there such a thing as a complete outsider, or is our shared womanhood enough to tear down our borders? Could our otherness, combined with our feminist calling, be what gives us our strength?
How does the development process work for a show like this?
After reading the play many times and discussing each scene, its themes and how they relate to our stories as international women, we made a list of elements that we were interested in bringing in: ideas, concepts, props, symbols, etc. We made a document with information on why this story is so important to us, what we wanted the show to look/feel like, a little bit about our cultural backgrounds and traditional dance styles. Each of us then chose four or five songs from our countries that either spoke to our experiences or conveyed in some shape or form important parts of the text.
The directors/choreographers then came up with a loose plan of what they envisioned each scene looking like and brought it to rehearsal, where we developed it further. We either had a prompt that guided us through a movement exploration, or we improvised based on what inspired us in the moment. The rough product was then put together and curated by Sara and Aika and attached to the song that we felt best matched the emotion/tone of that scene. After putting the scenes together, we then discussed any potential themes/moments that were left out or not explored enough and we went back and further developed them. The props and costumes chosen by our incredible art department helped us be extremely specific with the characters we’re playing, especially because we constantly rotate between them.
How did The Brick and HERE engagements work out? Is it difficult to transfer to a different venue?
With regards to The Brick Theater in Brooklyn, we were extremely lucky to work with our stage manager Zeynep Akca (also a board member of the space) as she was the one who introduced us to this wonderful theater that is easily accessible to all and aesthetically aligned with our show. As grantees of the Brooklyn Arts Fund from The Brooklyn Arts Council organization, we were required to premiere the show in Brooklyn and engage the Brooklyn communities and audiences through our work. For this reason, we decided to premiere Stella, Come Home at The Brick where we can easily reach out to community organizations that deal with international women and immigrants around Brooklyn.
After receiving the grant from BAC, we were also accepted into the CO-OP Sublet Series at HERE. For this, we were given certain dates, so we had to adjust the Brooklyn dates accordingly. Having to open the show in Brooklyn and then bring it to Manhattan will require some logistical planning with regards to handling and storing props, costumes and set pieces. Also, we face the challenge of having to adapt light and sound to the gear/equipment/rules provided to us from the two different venues. However, not only is this an exciting challenge, but it is also extremely wonderful to have the show travel from one borough to another because this allows us to develop/improve it and expand our audience.
How important is a theater company like Et Alia?
We like to think a company like ours is crucial for the communities it targets. We not only prioritize international women artistically by hiring them as much as possible in all positions we offer, but we also speak to them as audiences. We welcome people of all nationalities and backgrounds in our space, but we do focus our work and our style on immigrant women. It is our goal to provide them with opportunities, with representation and with a platform where they can tell the stories they want to tell.
Unlike other organizations, things like visa issues do not scare us away, but rather make us relate to our collaborators more. Because we understand the struggles they encounter, we are able to cater to their needs a lot more. Even things like the right vocabulary are delicate, and we had many conversations about how collectives that are not driven by international women sometimes have trouble knowing how to ask about our struggles, our backgrounds, the places we call home or our paperwork/visa statuses.
Et Alia is all about embracing those things and creating a comfortable space where international women are seen as the talented artists they are. In our work, we talk about themes that most U.S. audiences don’t have a lot of contact with. Thus, our company is important because it brings to the forefront issues that a lot of people don’t really think about, making them more aware of the struggles international people go through and raising awareness. As we celebrate our third-year anniversary, we can only hope to expand more and more and have our voices heard by a growing audience.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Stella, Come Home, presented by the Et Alia Theater Company, will run Aug. 6-7 at the HERE Arts Center in Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
