Ablution

HERE, in arrangement with the Lincoln Center Theater
Directors Lab, presents Ablution, a visual musing on the ridiculous nature of the rituals of femininity. The piece is co-written by Bertie Ferdman and Suzi Takahashi, and created and performed by Bertie Ferdman, Kiyoko
Kashiwagi, Paula Salomon, and Suzi Takahashi. Video by: Julien Jourdes.

Combining the 1940s pop art pin-up girl world of Gil Elvgren and the common garden leech, the performance is a
humorous and startling view of the fine line between
what is beautiful and what is grotesque. In a
Vaudevillian series of thematically linked dances,
songs, and pantomimes, the audience meets three
headless ladies under the hairdryers of a salon, a
sequined clad lounge singer, a gorgeous woman whose
beauty products cause her to explode, and several gum
chewing girls. A chorus of grape-vining maidens serve
as our tour guides in devolution, heralding our
preened ladies back to their inner primordial leech.