Horse Woman: Making a World of One’s Own

Horse Woman: Making a World of One’s Own by Philadelphia’s Headlong Dance Theater will be taking place on Thurs. Jan. 18, 6-9pm. In response to Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris, Headlong Dance Theater has developed Horse Woman: Making a World of One’s Own, a new performance inspired by the French artist’s work and life. In the early 1920s, Marie Laurencin designed sets and costumes for the Ballets Russes’s Les biches, featuring a scenario of sexually fluid romantic intrigue. “Biche” had multiple meanings at the time—a doe, a kept young woman, a lesbian—and Laurencin playfully intertwined these meanings in her designs. Inspired by this production, David Brick and Norma Porter of Headlong have reinterpreted the ballet’s themes for today and channeled the female-animal landscape of Laurencin’s aesthetic world to explore contemporary notions of fluidity, queerness, and gender. Horse Woman features luminous costumes by Maiko Matsushima that draw from Laurencin’s use of color and depictions of gender.

Feature image Credit

Headlong Dance Theater’s Horse Woman: Making a World of One’s Own. Open rehearsal, Dec. 15, 2023 at the Barnes Foundation. Photos by Daniel Jackson for Embassy: Interactive.