Event

American Layercake

David Herrera Performance Co. is thrilled to present its 2011 Home Season production, American Layercake. American Layercake is a full- length, original modern dance piece that examines the way in which yesteryear's American Dream and Nuclear Family models continue to obsess an increasingly diverse American society. Why are these models so deeply embedded? Are the progressive aspects of contemporary culture handicapped by these visions? Through powerful dance, imaginative media, and an evocative, original musical score, DHPCo confronts these cultural ideals, highlighting and celebrating our diverse range of American identities as they respond and dance with those iconic models.

At the outset, the piece invites the audience to follow a mixed race white/Latino family as they seek to understand themselves in the roles of a 'typical' American Nuclear family of the mid-century. Father, Mother, Child, Other: we see each role established, we understand its confines, and we watch the repeated attempts at breaking through or understanding each person within their role. What works? What doesn't? What can be requisitioned, what jettisoned? An omnipresent Chorus directs our focus and guides both the characters and the audience as we attempt to recognize some of the deep pull these visions continue to hold, and the enduring need to find a way to feel at home with oneself and one's community. Sometimes humorous, other times raw, always energetic and intensely felt, Herrera's choreography, in its attempts to both shake off and climb beyond the present moment with it's rough-shod immigration laws and it's Mad Men addiction, becomes unwittingly aching and beautiful.