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SummerWorks reviews: Mother Sea/Manman La Mer & What Do You See? (double bill)

MOTHER SEA/MANMAN LA MER by Djennie Laguerre (Crick Crack Collective/SummerWorks) / WHAT DO YOU SEE? By Jasmyn Fyffe (Jasmyn Fyffe Dance). At Theatre Centre BMO Incubator. Aug 7 at 5:15 pm, Aug 8 at 9:30 pm, Aug 10 at 7:15 pm, Aug 12 at 2:30 pm, Aug 13 at noon. Ratings: NNNN (Mother Sea) NNNN (What Do You See?).


In the first half of this strong double-bill featuring two 30-minute solo pieces about the lived and embodied experiences of Black women, Djennie Laguerre uses storytelling to paint a vivid picture of a young Haitian girl growing up in Canada who eventually reconnects to her ancestral roots through her grandmother.

Laguerre’s funny and engaging coming-of-age tale starts with well-crafted bits about family tension between the girl, who at a young age discovers she can predict the future through dreams and art, and her career-oriented parents who seek to distance themselves from Haiti’s magical traditions and assimilate in Canada.

When her ability vanishes following a mysterious illness, she travels to Haiti to discover the rich culture and history that had been suppressed at home in Canada.

The second piece shifts the focus from words to movement, with dancer and choreographer Jasmyn Fyffe offering a bold and thought-provoking examination of her own female Black body as a site for multiple cultural and historical layers of meaning and interpretation.

Beginning with a high-energy tongue-in-cheek send-up of nineteenth-century racist and colonial views of Black female bodies – specifically minstrelsy and freak shows – Fyffe dedicates most of her strong performance to a dark, emotional, slow-burning symbolic sorting-out and confrontation with this tangle of complicated legacies.

At times performing nude, Fyffe’s brooding exploration is brave and powerful.

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