A large dose of beauty and no disclaimer

The blunt title of this dance performance may raise an expectation that some kind of retraction might follow. But no, there rather is an addition in the form of the subtitle: Sacred Dance Performance - Celebrating in Reverence the Divine Beauty, Power, and Sensuality of Woman, the Giver of Life. The dances presented in this nearly seamless piece range from tribal dance formations and extrovert conventional bellydance to the high-voltage condensation of the Tantric Dance of Feminine Power, as Vajra Ma, head of the 5-women group calls her intensely sensual and devotional movement mediation.

The premise of this full-on evening production, scheduled for Thursday through Sunday, August 7th through the 10th at the Interact Theatre in the North Hollywood Art District is as sound as it is old: 

"The more woman's sensuality, sexuality, and creative power is denigrated in any given society," Vajra Ma points out, "the higher its tendency and prevalence for violence and war." Even formerly strictly male-identified disciplines of science are gradually and grudgingly widening their narrow view of interpreting any imagery in archeological findings as weapons, tools, and so-called "primitive" fertility rites to recognize the significance of spirituality and creativity as expressed in prehistoric art. This necessarily includes the recognition of women's leading role in community, society, art, and spirituality. 

But the research need only look back days rather than millenia: There is an easily discernible correlation, for example, between the suppression of women in a society and the readiness of it's young men to gloriously die as martyrs. In this sense, the treatment of women in far-away countries does concern us in a very tangible and deadly way.

And that makes for nearly two hours of bathing in visceral experience. We witness a birthing ritual, discover the riches of creativity and the depth of Earth as we are taken into a cave abundant with paintings of sacred art. We are drawn into a ritual revealing the sacred mystery of menstrual blood. We are entertained by the kind of dance and quirky playfulness that happens when women are among themselves in an atmosphere of trust. But then our heart stops with them as we experience the dismemberment womankind suffered over the ages and is still suffering today. 

These events are not make-believe, they are danced. And, other than prose and straight theatrical enactment, dance and music speak directly to your heart. You see a young girl innocently unfold and blossom into a woman, only to have to face the dismal reality of emotional and spiritual

"The land will die without my Blood" speaks the Great Whore of Babylon, as she steps over the soldiers on the battlefield, "the Blood no one dies for - the Blood of Life!" 

The first half ends with a heart rendering dance to music from Henryk Mikolaj Górecki's 1976 "Symphony No. 3," subtitled, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", a mother's weeping over the loss of a beloved son fallen in a useless war.

The keening scene starting the second half is first challenged by a Tantric Dance on an epiphany of Kali, the loving Hindu goddess of -- actually everything, including death and destruction. But only when Baubo, a trickster figure of Greek mythology, appears and unleashes her full -- and surprising -- spectrum of humor, is the mourning party finally crashed and the women are freed to gather what had been scattered by denigration. 
 

The restoration into the full scope of beauty and power of woman and thus the return to the path toward peace continues through an abundant reprise of the tribal dance, followed by the "Invitation to Love", a danced apotheosis of the "Sacred Marriage"

The last and culminating tableau of all seven participants (snakes included) has a musical surprise and will leave the space open for stillness or the final Tantric Dance by Vajra Ma.

Contrary to most of today's avant garde stage productions, Sex and Peace does not clobber the audience with a flood of impressions and decibel but leaves space to feel. It very well might leave you with the impression that, deep down inside you, it performed some subtle rewiring of the way you view the world and yourself in it. Maybe you want to plan on seeing two performances.