By JESSICA NEU
Coring Works proudly presents its latest work in The Glue Factory Project series, Stand By – An Allegory. The performance features critically acclaimed performers, including studio owner Beth Corning along with (Alberto Del Saz, Chezney Douglas, Evan Fisk, and Kimani Fowlin).
Stand By was created in collaboration with renowned puppeteer Tom Lee. Lee’s masterful puppetry work highlights the centuries-old style of Japanese Kuruma Ningy (Cart Puppetry). Kuruma ningyō, which translates to “puppets on wheels,” is also known as “cart puppetry.” The puppeteer sits on a cart or wagon while manipulating the puppet. The wagon is a small wooden box mounted on wheels. The puppeteer, traditionally dressed in a black cowl, sits on a stool on top of the cart, allowing the puppeteer to move the cart with their feet.
Lee easily maneuvers his cart and puppet as the 3 ½ foot puppet becomes a main character and major metaphor throughout Stand By. This emotionally riveting performance begins with a quiet poeticism. An audio clip describes the inexhaustibility of life, and it discusses how we never know when we may experience something, perform a task or an action, or see a person for the last time. How many more times will you see a shooting star or a sunset or talk to your best friend? These answers are often unknown, but the allegory in Stand By beautifully personifies the spectrum of emotions we feel as we traverse life and contemplate, fear, evade, or even embrace our own mortality.
Dancers enter stage right and walk across the stage as if balancing a tightrope. Pristine toe-heel leads guide each dancer across the stage as they move stoically toward a bright light. From the very first moments of Stand By, life is represented as a balancing act that we traverse delicately but remain in constant motion – so much so that sometimes we cannot let our heels touch the ground.
As the dancers walk across the floor, we also see a person moving purposefully wheeling herself across the stage in a chair as she begins to knit chunky red yarn in a repeated stitch pattern. And then we see him. The man dressed in all black with a slight bulge in his chest. He ominously lurks past the dancers, walking dangerously close to them as they balance their tightrope. Reminiscent of the grim reaper, he assumes his seat on his cart and reveals his puppet – a young child, presumably male, with an amiable affect.
Does the puppet represent the beginning of life, our inner child, the prominence of or mortality, or perhaps all three notions? Lee moves with slow, intentional movement. His movements are ever-so-exaggerated but represent the beauty in minutiae without appearing dramatic or inauthentic.
In tandem with Lee, the knitter moves across the stage and perches themselves, their chair, and their knitting work atop an elevated square anchored stage right. They silently alternate between knitting and sleeping, eventually creating a scarf-like object so long that I could not help but think of images from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death.
As Lee maneuvers his puppet, the dancers return and dance in beautiful contemporary patterns. Maintaining the allegorical representation of mortality, the dancers begin racing through life, running toward something but suddenly being stopped. Grasped by the chokeholds of an unknown variable that stops us in our tracks and offers an unwelcome setback or strife. They begin again. Chasing the unknown. Stopped again. Keep moving. Persevere. How many more chances will you have to chase your dreams?
Corning’s choreography of circular, rhythmic, graceful movements represents our hopes, dreams, desire to rest, struggles, and longing for human interaction. Each dancer moves with intensity, dancing with their entire soul. Corning portrays life’s chaos and the mundane’s precarity through contemporary dance.
Lee’s puppet embraces the magic of youth as he builds with blocks while the dancers emote. How many more times will you have to play with toys? How many more times will you access your inner child? How many more times will you fall in love? Or get married? The dancers and Lee’s puppetry stress the importance of never taking a moment for granted, smiling, laughing, loving, and dancing.
As Stand By nears its conclusion, we hear another sound clip that reminds us that even when we question, “Why is this happening to me?” everything in life is fleeting, and this too shall pass. This notion is beautifully captured as the show concludes.
As time passes and you grapple with your own mortality, sometimes your life’s work or your entire life can unravel. Quickly. Messily. Perhaps another person will collect the remnants and continue your legacy or at least take your place in a poignant manner.
How many more times will you see a show like Stand By? Never.
As circles of life begin again, different phases of your life come and go, and one person is replaced by another; I could not help but think of my parent’s home, where I lived from birth to 18 years old. I recently sold this home and am left towonder who has replaced me in that space? Who is sleeping in my old bedroom? Who is eating where I used to eat? As the new tenants began to knit their portion of life at 20 Highland, I was fortunate enough to know when I was leaving my childhood home for the last time. With decades of memories untangling before me like loose yarn, I walked forward on my tight rope, continuing to knit my own story, and hoping for many more “last times.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Coring Works Stand By – An Allegory at Carnegie Stage has performances through April 6, 2025. Tickets at https://www.carnegiestage.com/event-details-registration/corningworks-presents-stand-by-an-allegory-2025-03-28-20-00
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Reviews
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