Terpsicorps’ new season riffs on iconic artwork

Ever wonder why the person in Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting “The Scream” is, well, screaming?

Multiple potential answers — ranging from hilarious to tragic — will be featured in Before the Scream, the showcase component of Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance’s Season 2024. Performances take place Thursday, July 25-Saturday, July 27, at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, and include two additional acts, each composed of their own series of vignettes.

It all comes from the mind of Terpsicorps artistic director Heather Maloy, who seeks inspiration each spring, unsure where it will take her. Sometimes a piece of music gets her started, but for Season 2024, it was visual art.

“I wanted to find something that encompassed that concept of everyone sees something different in art, and that everything is subject to the eyes of the beholder,” she says.

Maloy began her process by looking at approximately 80 famous works of art, and her core idea gradually evolved into an exploration of what might have happened prior to the events depicted in several well-known creations. For example, what made Mona Lisa smirk? And how did the pitchfork-wielding farmer and his daughter from Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” wind up in front of their house — if that is indeed their house?

But applying that concept to a range of art pieces strayed too far from the idea of a singular work inspiring numerous interpretations. So Maloy zeroed in on Munch’s iconic painting, which she feels opens up the most varied possibilities of the works she considered — and aligns nicely with her ethos.

“I am a person who is very attracted to both darkness in art and humor in art,” she says. “And there’s something about ‘The Scream’ where, even though on one hand it’s depicted as this iconic representation of sorrow and horror, it’s also simultaneously used in a humorous fashion in pop culture.”

Maloy elaborates that many people’s first encounter with “The Scream” is through something silly, such as a blow-up punching doll or on a sock, which undercuts the painting’s scare potential. And yet its terrifying side endures, a dichotomy that aligns with Maloy’s own artistic explorations.

“So for me, that work kind of encompasses both of those possibilities,” she says. “I think all of what I have chosen will surprise people. I don’t know [that] anyone will be like, ‘That’s exactly what I thought of’ — except my husband, because one of them was his idea.”

Fluid movement

Terpsicorps’ other Season 2024 performances include a revival of “Second Line,” which premiered in 2008 at Diana Wortham Theatre. Maloy created the piece in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s 2005 destruction of New Orleans to honor the resiliency of the city’s residents as well as the roles that music and dance played (and continue to play) in its recovery.

“I want people to remember Hurricane Katrina and remember what that was like,” Maloy says. “And to be inspired and remember to laugh at the little things, and appreciate what is good about life while you’ve got it.”

Among the talented dancers helping Maloy achieve her vision for the program is Lelo Ima Rosado González (who uses they/them pronouns). A native of Puerto Rico, Rosado González identifies as transgender nonbinary, and their ability to perform both male- and female-representing work at a high level inspired Maloy to choreograph a solo specifically for them that’s its own section of the program. The dance is called “Stayed on Freedom,” and is accompanied by Resistance Revival Chorus’ cover of the Civil Rights Movement song “Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed on Freedom).”

“I wanted to highlight all of the things that make Lelo unique and not like any other dancer that I’ve seen before,” Maloy says. “And to also just express the joy that is inherent of being given the opportunity to be freely who you are, without any restrictions placed on you about what that means.”

Rosado González says having a solo created specifically for them is “surreal” and an opportunity that they didn’t think they’d get to experience anytime soon — despite being a part of such prestigious companies as Ballet Idaho.

“The piece is hard — it’s definitely pushing me in stamina,” Rosado González says. “It has a lot of neoclassical and contemporary elements with [ballet] pointe work. That’s a beautiful challenge.”

Assigned male at birth, Rosado González was, in their words, “pushed into this binary system” to which they never felt like they belonged. Before starting dance lessons at the age of 9 in Puerto Rico, they took gymnastics classes and were always taught male technique in both pursuits.

“I didn’t really understand the concepts of the binary system within the world of ballet,” says Rosado González, who was yelled at for wanting to study prepointe classes with their female peers.

“I was a little bit ashamed of it. It was embarrassing and not the best experience you would want to have at that time — when you’re dancing and then, all of a sudden, they’re telling you that you can’t dance like that.”

Rosado González then took it upon themself to train as hard as possible in order to feel more self-confident about their gender identity. Once they turned professional and were hired for male representing dance on a full-time basis, they sought out night classes on pointe work and honed this other part of their true identity.

“And then I really fell in love with it,” Rosado González says. “I was like, ‘No, this is how I actually feel like myself.’ It’s not like I’m putting on this extreme mask over me. It was freeing, as ballet should be — as dance should be. It actually felt like art, rather than just a job.”

WHO: Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance
WHERE: Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, avl.mx/dvw
WHEN: Thursday, July 25-Saturday, July 27, 8 p.m. $25-$65