A myriad of playful and juicy performance pieces answer the complicated, even loaded question of what eroticism means in exciting and entertaining ways. This made this year’s “What Is Erotic?” show — in which a variety of dancers, poets, and actors performed — a success of great proportions.
Performed every February, “What Is Erotic?” promises the promiscuous, the sensuous and the downright scandalous. The performance will end this Sunday.
Directed and produced by Blaze Enfante, Misha Bonaventura, Lara Foy and Shelly Adams, this year’s performance is a conglomeration of eccentric pieces. Glow-in-the-dark body painting, dance pieces, spoken word poems, stripteases and skits are performed and in turn, create what could definitely be called an erotic atmosphere. The show is a mixed-entertainment spectacle. A woman covered in gold paint performs an Indonesian dance one minute and skits about love triangles follow.
Performed by local artists, “What is Erotic?” is celebrating its sixth annual performance. It is the 418 Project’s largest fundraiser show, and each year the theme is changed. This year’s is “Wet Dreams.”
Funds raised go to the 418 Project: a local, non-profit organization that provides a safe space for a variety of dance classes, capoeira and yoga, among other performing arts. Their mission statement: “to move community and inspire transformation through performance and dance.”
The performers, comfortable with themselves, each other, and the space, lull the audience — made up of couples and friends alike — into feeling the same. As the show continues on, a strong vibe of kinship is felt in the room between the cast and the crowd.
During the intermission, the lines between the two start slowly blurring. Being hand-fed chocolate and blueberries on the mattresses and pillows on which they recline, most audience members start showing a whole new level of comfort. Lovers sometimes massage each other, cat calls resonate through the room, and giggles erupt from the crowd.
All pieces were met with a roaring applause during Sunday’s performance.
Poet Shimmy Boyle performed his original word piece “Living the Sexy Librarian Dream.” Describing his dream woman as a sexy librarian, Boyle performed one innuendo-laden line after the next about how he wants to give her his love through books. The audience lauded his performance with sighs of “oohs” and “aahs”.
“Let me be the author of your orgasm,” Boyle recites. “Let me scribble in your margins!”
Senior director Enfante kept the heat going by thanking the audience for, of all things, “coming.” Less than subtle? Perhaps. Humorously erotic? Definitely.
Something spicy for all to enjoy — almost all, leave the kids behind — “What is Erotic?” makes its audience members reconsider their definition of the word eroticism by showing that anything, even the unexpected, can be erotic. If you want to drift into the dreams of intimacy, this show will guide you there. You will surely awaken with something positive left behind.
