The ensemble of “The Head Is Not the Star of the Body;” Photo by Olivia Moon Photography.
Presented by Boston Dancemakers Residency Showcase
Directed and choreographed by Cassie Wang
Movement Collaborators and Past Contributors: Leah Misano, Juliet Paramor
Projection Artist by Genevieve Temple, Cassie Wang
Dramaturgy by Ilya Vidrin
Rehearsal Direction by Dara Nicole Capley
Lighting Design by Andrea Sala
Technical Direction by Anne Dresbach
Music by Big Thief
Performers: Gabriela Amy-Moreno, Hannah Franz, Sasha Peterson, Noli Rosen, Cassie Wang, Maude Warshaw
May 8 – 11, 2025 – in person
May 26–June 30, 2025 – virtual performance
Boston Center for the Arts
Calderwood Pavilion
Martin Rehearsal Hall
527 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116
Article by Kitty Drexel
BOSTON — Director and choreographer Cassie Wang’s choreopoem The Head is not the Star of the Body asked her audiences to consider longing in its purist form: raw emotion. Wang asked us, “How does longing reveal identity? How do we sit with someone else’s longing? How do we measure the distance between subjects of longing?” In the playbill’s Note From the Director, Wang leaned into her ask. She told her audience to prioritize feeling over thinking and to savor their responses. It’s a big ask; New England audiences are famously self-controlled. It’s how we show respect.
I’ve been wrestling with my emotional response to Wang’s work. A critic’s work, by its very nature, necessitates a certain removal of personal preference and retaining a professional distance to accurately analyze artistic performance. In the case of The Head is not the Star of the Body, to receive the art as intended by Wang and her dancers, it behooved me to do as she asked and let myself respond naturally to their work. My response to Wang’s multi-legged piece was cathartic.
Strictly speaking, The Head is not the Star of the Body is modern dance. And, Wang and her troupe incorporated elements of linedancing, squaredance, classical, folk, rock, and, of course, modern elements in the choreography. It might have been a hodgepodge of dissimilar shapes and motions. Instead, it was an athletic exercise in kinetic memory and nostalgia for the current moment. Video by Kiki Temple and Wang underset by Journal Entries from the cast were coordinate with dance and the music of Big Thief to participate in a ritual of performance.
As I settled in for 85+ minutes of dance, I asked myself about my longings. Not my longing for personal space – the show was sold out and seats were close- and not my longing for a shorter T commute. I interrogated my intimate longings, the secret yearnings I keep tucked away so I can function as an adult during the day. Wang was kind enough to show us her inner workings. Meeting her vulnerability and trust was the least I could do. I didn’t know what I longed for at the beginning of the piece. I discovered it by the end.
This work opened with a group dance vignette to Big Thief’s “Mary.” Dancers entered the space in single-file lines, dressed in white, to form a circle in the center of the room. It was the first of 20 dances performed in pairs, small groups, and the total ensemble. Each vignette added a new layer of meaning and fed into one long, continuous story about a woman connecting and disconnecting to those around her. In the end, performed to “Dried Roses,” The Head is not the Star of the Body, had told a story about partnership, family, and community in strong partner lifts, soft touches between dancers, and stillness. It was intimate, and its movements were highly stylized.
As I watched The Head is not the Star of the Body, I recalled the collaborative projects of my 20s. I worked with female artists to create music and theatre for performance and the haven of community. Those were precious golden days of my artistic youth: drinking giant mugs of Peet’s coffee over opera chatter, salsa dancing in Italy, and improv exercises in the woods of New Hampshire at high school theatre camp.
More than I miss those specific days, I crave the inner quiet I associate with them. I long for psychic peace. Specifically, I long for the muscles of my chest – the triangle of tissue and bone that arrows from under the hollow of my throat down to the tops of my breasts and meets at my sternum – to release the tension it has clutched since Inauguration Day. I fervently long for an unfettered societal interconnection and consciousness that allows young artists to make fearless art and for adult artists to create safety for the next generation of creators. I miss a normal amount of fight for the arts and free speech. I long for it with a desperation I did not know I could feel for an abstract concept.
I hope Cassie Wang and her artists gain the things they long for. I hope we all do.
