Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith
GLORIA
Gloria is a feminist work continuing Lieber and Smith’s fifteen-year choreographic partnership in using abstract dance as a means to break down patriarchal systems of female degradation through physical objectification. As objects of this work, the artists position themselves as recognizable images of female objectification, only to deconstruct and reconstitute these forms through embodied movement and connection. Within this arena of deeply understood femininity and friendship, images dissolve as feelings communicate viscerally. Gloria is explicit, speaking through the voice of women forced to identify with society’s framing as “already been f*#cked.” Dance, however, provides these women a different narrative, sculpted by them through the potentiality of their own bodies and as authors of their own work. In an age of grief, this performance focuses on the glory of survival, shining through tits and ass to show spine and uterus.
Gloria originally premiered at Abrons Art Center’s Amphitheater in May 2021