​HETAERAE

 

Jump-Start's Hetaerae is challenging and worth seeing...

 

Hetaerae begins with the words, “I probably shouldn't tell you any of this. But I will.”

 

They're spoken in darkness, heightening the sense that all that's to follow is somehow illicit. That sets the stage perfectly for the provocations to come.

 

The piece, conceived by Laurie Dietrich, explores female sexuality through the ages and how it came to be uncoupled from the sacred. The title refers to the courtesans of ancient Greece, cultured, educated women of standing. Dietrich and the rest of the show's creative team raise questions about how sex workers moved from that elevated perch to the much lower rung they occupy today.

 

The piece consists of well-performed scenes that flow from one to the next, moving back and forth through time. In “Intake,” a modern dominatrix (Brandyn Miller) explains the rules to a potential client; in “Sangre Envenenada,” a Mexican prostitute (Monessa Esquivel, who also wrote the piece) in 1933 reflects on her work; “Descent” tells the ancient story of the goddess Inanna's (S.T. Shimi) trek to the underworld ruled by her sister Ereshkigal (Dietrich).

 

Dietrich describes Hetaerae as a “theater ritual,” and it does have that feel. That's especially true in “Descent,” which deals with all that Inanna gives up in order to make her journey; and in the movement pieces, most of which were choreographed to fine effect by co-director Sandy Dunn. One of the most striking segments is “Invocation,” in which a goddess (Miller) bound by a long red rope, struggles to rise.

 

The show boasts a sumptuous look, thanks to Billy Muñoz's gorgeous lighting, which makes good use of shadow, particularly in the pole dance piece “21st Century Temple”; and to co-director Erik Bosse's evocative video pieces, which are projected onto columns. Dino Foxx's sound design adds some additional texture.

 

Hetaerae is smart, challenging and well worth seeing.

 

Deborah Martin

San Antonio Express-News

 

 

 

The Haunting of Hetaerae...

 

I have been exceedingly haunted for the past fifteen hours or so by the archetypal personas, metaphors, and shadows of women in their most basic reductions and stereotypes through the myopic insecurities and basal terrors of the male anima.

 

This poignant multi-media work left me feeling stunned, bothered, anxious, raw, sad, and even a bit guilty. I was assailed with stereotypes, epitomes, and archetypes of the sacred feminine, female power and the dynamics of contemporary gender issues. I encountered the Great Mother/Great Queen, the Medial, the Martyr, the Femme Fatal, the Amazon, the Seductress, The Prostitute, and of course, the Hetaerae. 

 

Moments of cognitive and affective harmony occasionally presented themselves when I would detect the presence of Buddhist philosophy gently woven in the tapestries of monologues and narrative voice-overs. The keystones of dualism, impermanence, emptiness, and attachment/clinging formed a powerful foundation for this courageous exploration of our primal fears of and violent reactions to the sacred feminine.

 

Within the first five minutes of Hetaerae I was provoked, haunted, and held captive by the multi-sensory bombardment.  I want to encourage you to step off the edge of the cliff and know in your heart of hearts that you will fly. Go experience Hetaerae. 

 

Dr. Todd Russell

Jump-Start's Hetaerae: Reclaiming the Dignity of Sex Workers...

 

Now showing at Jump-Start’s Sterling Houston Theater within the Blue Star Arts Complex: Hetaerae (pronounced “hi-teer-ee”), a work that “unwraps the stereotypes of the sex-worker to explore the goddess archetypes underneath … as well as the ways people have taken female power – or (really just) human power –and turned it into something you can throw money at,” said the play’s writer and lead creator Laurie Dietrich after rehearsal last night. “It’s not really a story, it’s an idea. We’re not really characters, we’re energies.”

 

She laughed as she thought about the complexity of defining what it is that she and the Jump-Start team have created – how do you describe what Hetaerae is about?

 

“It’s hard to answer (that) without sounding preachy and vague,” Dietrich said, also an actor in the performance. “When people’s eyes start to glaze over, you just mention pole dancing, that gets them interested … come see philosophy – with boobs!”

 

This piece is an attempt to reclaim the dignity of men (and women’s) sexual roles, Dietrich said, as, prostitutes, dominatrixes, strippers, virgins, courtesans, or hetaerae – independent, highly educated sexual escorts to the ancient Greeks.

 

I wouldn’t describe the short sections as monologues, they are more like a mix of conversation and poetry. It’s not exactly “interpretive dance,” either; the choreography is literal, too – historic at times.

 

Dramatic, colorful spotlight – transformed into a seemingly solid state via haze machine, film projected precisely on five screens beyond the actors downstage, a professional (highly aerobic and erotic) striptease, a dominatrix fiddling with her whip, a Sumerian goddess removing her horned crown, a Mexican prostitute chugging poison in Boy’s Town (c. 1930)…of course, I’m not doing it justice. You’ll just have to see for yourself.

 

Hetaerae attempts to convey a heavy, abstract philosophy – “a thesis on stage,” as Dietrich describes it, fully aware that some people might just call it “weird feminism” and go about their day. Describing Hetaerae accurately, like most original performances at Jump-Start, is missing the point.

 

“There’s nothing to ‘get’,'” said Erik Bosse, the newest company member who joined in September. “There are people to analyze every movement and word, thinking that they represent a specific idea…but this is almost nothing but abstraction…you just have to hope that (the audience) will get something – anything – out of it.”

 

Don’t be intimidated if you fail to grasp all the historical or religious metaphors and representations. I had to google Inanna after watching the rehearsal.  ”This was Jesus before there was Jesus,” Dietrich said.

 

Iris Dimmick

The Rivard Report

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