OdDancity’s Marbles Questions Sanity Through Dance

She watches me walk toward her through the parking lot; her gaze locked on me. I shrink under her dead-eyed stare as I pocket several marbles, as instructed, and move forward. Another girl lingers close by, black circles engulf her eyes, sunken and lifeless. She opens a creaky door and urges me forward, up a dark staircase. The torturous darkness abates in a white room, where a third dancer crawls on the ground, in between guests’ feet, clicking marbles together and scratching them on the wooden floor. Sometimes she looks at us, boring into our souls, other times she keeps her head down, covered by her hair, and slowly, ever so slowly, offers us one of her marbles, a piece of her sanity. She begins to scribble on the ground with a marble, then in the air, secrets we aren’t privy to.

Directed and choreographed by Alex Floyd, Marbles is OdDancity’s first immersive experience and uses “horror dance” to unsettle the audience and make them question the notion of sanity in today’s society. Masterfully, Floyd generates a world in which marbles the dancers use become a metaphor for what society gives and takes from us on a daily basis, and what we give and take in return. At first, the audience watches from the outside how the trio of tragic dancers fights the pull of societal norms, how they try to overcome materialism, jealousy, distractions and the need for control. Then the haunted figures lead us into their space, placing us in a comforting circle around them, now an audience of confidantes and equals.

“Everyone has approximately the same amount of insanity living inside them…each human just shows the world more or less.” – Alex Floyd

The dancers, locked in repetitive motions and beholden to the marbles in front of them, mimic the boredom and mechanical nature of everyday life. They pick up society’s marbles only to drop them back into the well of “normalcy.” But then a dancer tears free of the cycle and her metaphorical restraints, throwing her marbles away or disregarding them completely; she finds herself in her “insanity.” The oppressive growling music by Dust Belt (featuring spoken word by Wolf Eyes) closes in as the dancers take turns escaping and dancing through staccato movements like wild animals covered in bugs, only to get drawn back into their approved roles, losing their true selves. It is easier to give in to society than to resist, easier to bottle up the marbles than set them free and be dubbed “insane.” But what defines sanity? Who is really in control?

“What if we were all able to act on our subconscious desires with no societal input…the world might be more wild.” – Alex Floyd

Sitting in the circle, I watch the dancers searching, finding and trading marbles with each other and the audience, never content with what they have. Yet I feel a kinship with them, almost protective of them; because of the stigma attached to being an individual, they are just trying to fit in. Stretching and contorting her petite frame, dancer Emily Yetter looks at the marbles I hold with fascination before trading one of mine with hers. Instinctively, I look through my marbles and offer her one more of the same color she took. Gently, she looks at me with understanding, takes it and seems satisfied, like a missing puzzle piece had been found. Or was it what society told her to find?

“They struggle through their lives deciding what is or isn’t crazy, and how many marbles to keep or give away, until they finally collect them all and then lose them immediately.” – Alex Floyd

The success of this experience is inextricable from the mesmerizing performances of the three dancers – Yetter, Leslie Augustine and Ana Miro – who bring a fierce desire for truth into their movements, their frustration clearly wrought on their faces. In Marbles, Alex Floyd has created a beautiful and painfully real look at the nature of society and the destructive force it plays on individuality.

Fun Fact from Alex Floyd: “The mass amounts of marbles were difficult to work with but actually the most fun prop I’ve ever dealt with. I even think, despite my dancers’ many marble-sized bruises, they might say the same. The marbles became another character to interact with and to learn about and explore. We pushed as many marble boundaries as we could. My actual problems came in the second rehearsal after using the marbles, when I decided we needed to add some other props to control them and add different sound qualities, we had several glass vases break during the piece and had to stop and clean up/sort through each marble and sheet to clean up broken glass. We also had a few marbles break on us (who knew, right?).”

OdDancity is considering reworking Marbles into a short film and may have a new dance horror/immersive show near October.

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