That Was the Hygienic Egg

The Hygienic Egg was a remarkable look at the poetry of Adrienne Rich on the part of dancers, hoopers, poets, monologuists, singers!  

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The event moved from the entrance area, where, after Marya greeted everyone,  She read a portion of the forward to the collected poems of Adrienne Rich- up to 1974, a sort of call to arms for the time, and for today.  Christie Williams then read “Dedications” to invite us all into the poetic voice of Rich.

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 The audience followed Marya to the basement gallery, which had a relaxed, industrial, art-in-progress feel to it.

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 Here Cristin Cawley performed her passionate piece, inspired by “Final Notations”, followed by Arianna reading “From an Atlas of the Difficult World” -the same words Christie had read, but now in the voice of a young girl.  

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Upstairs, we found Serena hooping to music by Ani Difranco, inspired by the poem: “That Mouth”.  

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We then turned to hear blues monologuist Jason Rabin deliver a contemporary meditation on the work of the poet.  

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The middle gallery held Christine Poland, and poet Tasha Levy, to a poem by AR, and then to one by Tasha, inspired by Rich’s work, in which we were led to step through the one door.  

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Nora Fox sang a delicate poem in the doorway, with wisps of shadow in it, while the St. Patrick’s Day drums passed by.  

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Kathleen Smith, Amelia Smith, and Ann Shenk performed in the front gallery, a piece rendering “Translations” into movement, crossing bodies and decades.

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The show was closed with a reading by Bill Hossack of “Here is a map of our country”, “here is the Sea of Indifference, glazed with salt” – truly a call to action.

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The performers were amazing and generous, and the audience was too.  We thank the Hygienic Arts for their spaces, their openness to our work coming to wander through, every March.

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