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  Courtesy of Roch Doran (left to right) World Arts and Culture students Kristen Smiarowski, Laurah Klepinger (sitting), Paulina Sahagun (standing), Shyamala Moorti, and Jack Kirven will perform "Carve Something Straight" Friday night in Kaufman Hall.

By Andrea Dingman

Daily Bruin Contributor

Carve something straight. Color within the lines. Get in single file. Conform.

In an ideal world, following directives such as these would be an easy task; however, human will doesn’t often comply with the simple rules.

This paradox is explored in the dance concert “Carve Something Straight,” presented this weekend by five graduate students in the World Arts and Cultures department.

The title is derived from a quote by philosopher Immanuel Kant, who speaks of “the crooked timber of humanity from which you can never carve anything entirely straight.” This quote refers to how multiple meanings can be found in any performance. “Carve Something Straight” acknowledges that there will not be a unanimous reaction to the pieces.

Choreographers Jack Kirven, Laurah Klepinger, Kristen Smiarowski, Shyamala Moorty and Paulina Sahagun hope to prove Kant right through their respective works.

The impossibly strict nature of gender roles is tackled by Kirven in his two pieces, “Bull” and “daddy.” Kirven studied dance and French as an undergraduate student at Coker College in his native South Carolina

“Bull” deals with issues of masculinity. Kirven, a self-professed “queer theorist,” mocks American notions of masculinity with modern dance informed by his previous training in gymnastics and hip hop.

The piece is an excerpt from a full-length work built off of the Greek myth of Theseus, a young man who enters a labyrinth to fight a monstrous minotaur.

“It’s a study of gender performative,” Kirven explained. “It’s really making fun of masculinity.”

“Daddy” is derived from Kirven’s relationship with his dad, who is not the same person as his father.

“Yeah, my mother was married seven times so my father is not my dad,” said Kirven. “He is the person that the piece is about.”

Kirven said that his work is a bit of a joke on the show’s theme.

“It’s a double entendre in a way because it’s not straight; it’s making fun of straight,” Kirven said. “I’m more at the opposite end of straight.”

Laurah Klepinger’s piece, “A Thesis-Sized Hole in the Universe,” comments on her dual life as a theorist and artist: Klepinger is currently completing both an MA in dance theory and an MFA in choreography. The combination, said Klepinger, is not as helpful as some might assume.

“My theoretical background has put a damper on my own creative freedom of choice,” she explained.

“Thesis” is essentially about the breakup of a romantic relationship, which Klepinger uses as a metaphor for the inability to reconcile theory and practice.

In keeping with this theme, Klepinger will interrupt her own performance to look at it from an objective, theoretical perspective.

“Thesis” defies the command to carve something straight, as Klepinger challenges the dominant view of this practice and theory and exposes different interpretations of the clash.

“It’s a directive,” Klepinger said. “We’re asking the audience to do something with it, not just asking but directing them to.”

Kristin Smiarowski’s piece, “Because the Day Was Sunny,” reflects her interests in music, psychology and dance in telling the story of a terrorist attack on a bus.

The inspiration for the work came in part from the time she spent living in Israel. Rather than merely reporting about the account as the evening news would, Smiarowski looks at the individuals effected by the tragedy and how they ended up there.

“(I) detailed the reasons they were in the place they were in, so that it is combining this violent, terrible thing that happens to them but also the simple, ordinary, mundane reasons that they got on a bus that day,” she said.

“Sunny” is a solo piece, with Smiarowski playing the parts of narrator, passengers and even the bomb. Her multiple roles bring different perspectives to the piece, ranging from an objective news story recount to a tragically personal remembrance.

While she is slightly secretive about the title’s significance, Smiarowski explained its significance lies in the mundaneness of the day of the bomb.

“Sunny” is also impossible to carve straight in the sense that the participants, observers and villains all see the attack from a different angle. Smiarowski, however, does believe in the possibility of audience members finding clarity in the piece.

“I think with really successful performance pieces, they just have this clarity to them,” Smiarowski said. “It’s almost like a moving painting.”

Also in “Carve Something Straight” are two pieces by Shyamala Moorty, “Balance of Being” and “Like Mother, Like Daughter?” and one piece by Paulina Sahagun, “Local Loca.”

In “Balance of Being,” Moorty divides herself down the center, using half of her body to dance ballet and the other to dance the Indian Bharatanatyam dance.

“Like Mother, Like Daughter?” explores the relationship between a mother and her mixed-race daughter.

Sahagun’s “Local Loca” tells the story of a girl with an identity crisis living in an asylum, employing masks, physical comedy and narrative.

While the choreographers deal with very different material, they are all united in their resistance to being pinned down to one meaning.

“I have this curiosity, seeing the concert and figuring out where the dots will connect and how the line will be carved, how the connections will be made,” Smiarowski said.

DANCE: “Carve Something Straight” will be presented at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday in Kaufman Hall 200. Admission is free.

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