At White Bird, a dance of memory and loss * Oregon ArtsWatch

"Reading this description, my eyes hung on the charged word "rubble." I learned from White Bird's Executive Director Graham Cole during his curtain speech that I could expect this story to relate to themes of nostalgia and relationship - an interpersonal and psychological "rubble" of sorts, albeit with contemporary geopolitical connotations of war, genocide, and displacement that I found hard to shake."

"Their relationship came to life with the help of Scenographer Martina Cabanas, who set the stage full of objects such as an old television that glimmered on and off, a refrigerator, a washtub with rags, and a worn-out couch. These objects appeared in an irregular arch toward the audience, with plenty of room for the dancers to move about centerstage. All set pieces connoted slightly different historical moments in western domestic life, from mid-century to the more recent past."

Runa is a two-person dance work led by artistic director Lali Ayguadé and dancer Lisard Tranis that stages a tense, intimate investigation of emotional and domestic rubble. The piece frames the performers as a couple haunted by nostalgia, yearning, heartbreak, and historical expectation, layered with geopolitical resonances of war, genocide, and displacement. Martina Cabanas's scenography arranges household objects—an old television, refrigerator, washtub, and worn couch—in an irregular arch, suggesting shifting domestic eras. Conchita Pans's dim, hazy lighting amplifies ambivalence and emotional tension, while choreography emphasizes proximity, distance, and the troubled dynamics between the two characters.

Read at Oregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News