The Reclamation, like many of Hilary Easton’s past works, tells a story of duality. In her past pieces, we have been given glimpses of people at war with themselves, fighting their passions or their intellect, being torn between their desires and their knowledge. No one ever really wins these internal battles so much as the characters’ understandings of their own ‘knowledge’ or ‘intellect’ evolves to include, accept, or endorse passion, desire, art.

The setting for the duality introduced in The Reclamation is the natural world, inhabited by beautiful creatures in costumes inspired by myths and by absurd creatures in costumes inspired by early explorers of dark continents. We know from the get-go who the choreographer favors, but as the piece unfolds we begin to realize that this, like Easton’s other pieces, is not a simple tale of good vs. evil.  Easton conveys this complexity through her choreography -- with characters who at first threaten and evade but then grapple and even enjoy one another often in the same moment – and through the inspired text, which evolves from simple, repeated lines that might be borrowed from hunting manuals into a gripping and personal tale of survival. The animals and humans in this piece are the wiser for having come in contact with one another – and so is the audience.

Dorothy Barnhouse

Dorothy Barnhouse is a writer and educator, working as a literacy consultant in the New York City Public Schools.      djbarnhouse@nyc.rr.com

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