Review of Ballet 5:8’s Reckless
Walking toward the Studebaker Theater for Ballet 5:8’s premiere of Reckless, you couldn’t escape the gravity of this moment. The marquis of the Auditorium Theatre reads the sad statement of our times, #OneYearDark. One year of careers on pause, one year stepping back from performance art to focus on survival. But on this day, as the first signs of spring peer out through the dirt, you could also experience the first signs of the return of the arts.
In this tenuous moment, you would expect a conservative work that stays within the established lines of content and form, a toe touching the water to measure its temperature. Choreographer Julianna Rubio Slager comes out of the darkness with an ambitious work of nearly two hours, telling a story with intrigue and drama. Reckless reimagines the biblical story of Hosea and Gomer in the 21st Century, a story of sex trafficking, betrayal, abuse and a love that goes further than could be hoped. Though the ballet journeys through the most adult of places, the movement remains suggestive without crossing the line into explicit.
The character of Gomer presents a challenge because her story is caught between competing narratives in our world today. She could be set up as the warning from purity culture to scare young girls towards modesty with her abuse and objectification being likely consequences of seductive behavior. In contrast, a more progressive viewpoint wants to claim her story as one of liberation and expects her to shirk the yoke of shame traditionally connected to sex work. By letting research from the real lives of sex trafficking survivors drive the story, Slager allows Gomer’s nuanced perspective to take center stage and refuses to fall into tribal stereotypes.
The story of Reckless is set in Chicago, with all aspects of the performance coming together to capture the heart of the city. Each costume on stage reflects the color, shape and pattern of the Chicago flag. The iconic tableaux of life in the Windy City, from the steel undergirding of the L, to the cast iron lamps illuminating the sidewalk, to the pedestrian energy of the street, are portrayed with imaginative movement from the dancers. The dancers themselves morph in and out of formation to create the objects that make the city feel like home. They are the streetlights, the train cars, the panhandlers as well as the grifters, heroes and prostitutes. The sparse set design allows the imagination to fill in the details of a city that feels cold to the outsider but also portrays a community in pursuit of a better life for all. The human set design and their transition from props to people echo the central theme of objectification in the ballet.
Gomer’s character is divided into three roles: the Physical, the Intellect and the Subconscious. The three roles combine to form a multi-faceted character, one that has agency in her decisions and yet is haunted by the ghosts of abuse. She is a victim and yet she has the responsibility to choose. In the end, when Gomer lies in the street stripped of all she has, you would expect the hero to ride in and whisk her back to safety. But in the final piece, there is a delicate balance between Hosea’s love and Gomer’s responsibility to choose a different pathway for her life. Hosea extends forgiveness, Gomer must accept it, and, furthermore, she must forgive herself. Her story cannot be flattened into an example for a tribal narrative. To do her story justice, she must not become another object, either for rescue or abuse. In Reckless, Slager tells her story with dimension and manages to maintain Gomer’s humanity by viewing her decisions with empathy. This story is often flattened into an object lesson of the evil outside of “our tribe.” However, Reckless breaks that mold by choosing compassion. The ballet listens to the voice of sex trafficking survivors and gives them the microphone. It’s a humanity that is broken, but also beautiful. Though the story is full of loss, the ember of hope cannot be snuffed out. It’s a story that resists the trite, cliché answers and allows love to have the final word.
- Jeremy Slager
Interested in seeing Reckless? Find out details of where it’s being performed here.