Predator Songstress Reveals the B Side Cuts that Accompany Social Justice Battles
A woman clad in a blue dress and white go-go boots bounds for the edge of the woods; blind to the soldiers that follow, blind to the shackled sisterhood that she has left within the stone ruins, listening only for the sound of her own lost voice. In 2014, Seattle-based collective Degenerate Art Ensemble (DAE) asked the audience of On the Boards (Seattle, WA) to experience the price that comes with using one’s voice to amplify the voiceless. The artists unabashedly explore the change and consequences that accompany radical action in their production of Predator Songstress.
In this semi-apocalyptic fairytale, anti-heroine Ximena must break free from the oppressive regime that has stolen her voice and find a way to speak her truth again. This minimalist-meets-media event combines the stark impression of a near-blank stage with the flexibility of media in the form of screens, lighting, and ethereal folk music. The prominent commentary on communication is clearly and creatively conveyed across the empty expanses of stage.
In one repeated tableau, rebels from the movement take turns sending videos and transmissions from a chain link-backed “studio”. Meanwhile, 5 screens suspended above the stage display a grayscale image of tall, dark trees and smoky mountains radiating with pulsating radio waves. Aside from the band and the livestream set-up (a total of maybe 4 square feet), the remainder of the stage stays blank. It reminds the audience of the empty space through which communication has to travel; even now in a time when we are more connected than ever, the play subtly reminds us that those choice words have so far to travel to reach their destination.
The floating screens as well as the screens hidden in the scarce set pieces (the radio tower built at the start of Act II, for instance) serve as supplemental spaces for telling different parts of the story. Sometimes, an antlered woman lives on the floating screen, wickedly taunting Ximena with a series of doors to pick from, in a tricky twist on the classic Let’s Make a Deal. Based on the mocking cackle from the antlered woman, we’re led to assume that there was no choosing the right door.
The most striking use of media in the play comes directly from the words of the surprisingly open and vulnerable audience being sung over the airwaves. During the intermission, a live art installation invites the audience to participate in interviews, share messages or poems or songs, and even share personal stories. Then, like a Goddess of Words, Ximena stands atop a radio tower, draped in gold and her own set of antlers, conducting the stories of the people across the airwaves. It’s a graceful dance of her arms as she gently pushes the sounds around her, sharing with the rest of us. The “predator songstress” is a Giver of Song, drawing even more on the duality that comes with exposing people’s truths. All of this adds up to the production’s distinct statement on the ways society uses technology to share our sound – our voices, as the play aptly alludes to.
The play, originally produced in 2010, is brimming with themes that have had a particularly loud presence in the media as of late. The concept of “using ones’ voice” to invoke change and stop oppression is one that many of us have, especially in recent months, is something we’re currently revisiting and practicing. Ximena and her brother’s journey prove that the truth doesn’t always reveal what we want to know. This piece reminds us that just because our intentions are good this does not mean that the consequences of our choices will be positive ones.
One of the final moments of the show is a raucous, heart-wrenching punk rock number that completely disengages from the folk-feel of the show’s previous numbers. Ximena, in a battered white dress, wails into the microphone as she is forced to live with the consequences that accompanied her choices. In spirit, they were the right thing to do; she gave her people a place to use their voice to speak out against tyranny. The personal cost, however, and the cost to those she loved dearest make her actions hard to celebrate.
Predator Songstress is an eerily accurate reminder that just because our actions have good intention, it does not mean that the consequences will reflect the same. From the emptiness that words can be lost in, to the caged feeling that can accompany staying true to a single cause, DAE shines a light on the other side of the coin that is justice.