I’ve always had a strange relationship with Lenora Champagne. I think she does marvelous work, most importantly: smart, witty, fun. And like a guilty pleasure, I know I should find her abstract poetics grating, but I return to her time and time again, my mind at ease, dancing with her charming mix of amateur song, dance, and lyricism.
TRACES/Fades at the Ice Factory is no exception: a rumination on the effects of Alzheimer’s, the piece explores more the dynamics of relationships within a family than the biological entity itself. Three generations of women discuss their histories, their problems and desires set against the backdrop of loss and decay. Lenora comes out swinging:
There is a story here, but what is it?
Something about words and language and how they constitute us.
Aging, of course, and fading: a consequence.
And away we go. The first half mostly entails the interactions, both practical (going to the store for milk) and poetic (invoking memories through a haze) among grandmother, mother, and daughter as they strive to connect across collective memory and corporeal failure; this is where the piece is its most successful.
The second half takes place in a nursing home, which also doubles as a surreal memory-cabaret. The cast of characters is delightfully sweet and hilarious (particularly Judith Greentree as Hilda, whom I wanted to take home with me), but there is very little attention paid to the problematics of a space that embodies the decay the piece takes as its theme. Yes, nursing homes are strange, mostly sad, smelly places, but TRACES was too eager to buy into the assumption, especially in a time where millions of dollars are spent trying to combat Alzheimer’s, but almost nothing is done in regards to how prolonged life can be bettered. Typical America: all quantity, no quality.
A nod must also be given to video design by Shaun Irons and Lauren Petty, who create a marvelous accompaniment to the piece, not intrusive, yet not forgettable. Images fade in and out of focus, static interferes with our perspective, and a bodiless hand writes and unwrites names, poetry. Handwriting degenerates and disappears as an outright example of the language that constitutes us, perhaps more elusive than the language of consciousness itself. Consciousness disappears; writing (performance?) haunts.
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