2017 Choreographed Production

TUTU | Body is seeking

Tutu is a short story written and produced for Dance Umbrella 2017 by Tamara Osso. In collaboration with Shanell Winlock, Laura Cameron, Kgotsofalang Moshe & Nathan Attie Botha from Moving into Dance Mophatong. The story is about reorganizing social, cultural, and personal structures. The challenges people face and the impact of their responses to those challenges.

Images from the performance

The Short Story

TUTU

The story of the aloof woman, the unstable man, the busy lady and the man who doesn’t want to be seen.

Written by Tamara Osso

It’s strange that there are so many people around her and yet she doesn’t seem to see them.
She simply continues her automatic work with confidence and an air of importance which does not seem to explain the work. 

She is aloof. 

The others see her. How can they not?
The busy lady acknowledges the others who cross her path.
There is a man who seems somewhat unstable and another man who apparently doesn’t want to be seen. 

The unstable man is worrying. I don’t like the way he makes me feel.

The man who doesn’t want to be seen is sneaky. He never shows his face.

The busy lady, the man who doesn’t want to be seen and the unstable man are interested in the aloof woman.
She stays isolated but her presence is felt even if she is peripheral. 

Upset by the aloof woman’s lack of participation, the busy lady gallantly tries to penetrate her royal aura.
She begins mocking her appearance. The aloof woman is only slightly annoyed.
Not much will distract herself from…well…herself.
The busy lady probes further and takes something that belongs to the aloof woman.

The aloof woman is cross. She is angry that someone interfered with her day.
The aloof woman’s anger is provoking the busy lady’s temper.
They become tense. The unwillingness to participate and the forced urgency to change have become too much. 

They fight.

The unstable man is swept up in the drama.
The man who doesn’t want to be seen is trying to stop the busy lady, he can tell that she is beyond her threshold.
She is upsetting him too. He tries to hold her.

He holds her.

She is grateful to this insightful man. The once aloof woman retrieves her tutu. Now, its value, diminished.
She has to redress and is now ready to engage differently. I think she is lighter. 

Whoops! The unstable man cannot stand on his own two feet.

Help him!

The engaged woman tries. He is continuously falling over.
The engaged woman, the insightful man and the grateful lady unite to support him.
They soon realise he is neither stable…nor is he unstable.
He is simply NEVER still and constantly moves about: shifting his weight according to the way his body falls.
Avoiding objects with dexterity and thinking quicker than most at anticipating change.

The engaged woman, the grateful lady and the insightful man begin to dance with the adaptable man.

THE END.