In Performance – Juliana F. May, Adult Documentary (American Realness 2017)

Juliana F. May
Adult Documentary

January 7, 5:30pm
January 8, 8:30pm
January 9, 1pm
January 10, 10pm

American Realness
Abrons Art Center
466 Grand St, New York

What is the relationship between the form of language and it’s meaning? Can a word’s “shape” interfere with the reality of what its expressing? What does it mean to exist in this unclear, problematized space, to dance around a topic rather than seek clarity?

These are the questions asked in Juliana F. May’s dance performance, Adult Documentary, a collision of text and movement with playfulness and eroticism running throughout, bringing to mind at times both the casual confidence of pre or post orgy discussion and the hollow emotion of group therapy. It is a piece certainly touching on sex, but primarily focused on communication, on the oppressive nature of form in language.

In a space covered with thick brown shag carpeting, May’s performers repeat with subtle addition and variation a cycle of movement beginning and ending with a recognizable tableaux and text. Small alterations to the text and fluidity within roles creates new contexts for the deconstructed dialogue shared between performers and the the audience.

Adult Documentary is an intelligent exploration of language and form, inhabiting a space of friction between the two.

Photo by Alex Escalante