Deprecated: mb_convert_encoding(): Handling HTML entities via mbstring is deprecated; use htmlspecialchars, htmlentities, or mb_encode_numericentity/mb_decode_numericentity instead in /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/super-cool-ad-inserter/inc/scaip-shortcode-inserter.php on line 37
Though it usually references the sufferings of soldiers, post-traumatic stress disorder is increasingly used to describe the impacts on victims of things like poverty and violent crime. In his new stage work, Kimono, Mark C. Thompson asks us to think about PTSD in terms of confronting the predators who cause it.
Kimono premieres at the intimate Carnegie Stages Theater courtesy of Off the Wall Productions and fireWALL Dance Theater. It’s a movement-theater work that combines mime, dance and spoken-word voiceover to tell the story of two victims of assault. Thompson, who created, directed and choreographed the show, portrays an unnamed man whom a gruesome attack has left with seemingly endless psychological torments; an artist, his lone solace is the creation of beautiful Japanese kimonos. In the course of the story, a writer (Moriah Ella Mason) is also preyed upon, and the two eventually form a relationship. In Thompson’s terms, they confront and “push back against” the predator.
Thompson is well known on local stages, and his résumé in mime and movement theater reaches to Broadway and Europe. He’s a wonderfully expressive performer; at times, evoking pain on stage, he can seem to shrink before your eyes. Mason matches him with a vocabulary drawn more from contemporary dance. The cast is completed by Alexandra Bodnarchuk, who embodies the menacing (but also unnervingly sensual) predator, and Ryan Bergman, who portrays a third victim. (Bodnarchuk and Bergman also team up for an interpolated commedia dell’arte pantomime about a soldier and a poor man that comments on predation in economic terms.)
The action occurs on a bare stage, with strong lighting effects by Antonio Colaruotolo and set to evocative original music composed by David Bernabo. It’s a parable in pantomime that is visually cued by kimonos created by Linda Wallen and Kari Kramer, and masks made by Thompson himself.
The hour-long-show’s wordless action is strong enough that the intermittent voiceover sometimes feels heavy-handed. Kimono’s most potent element, meanwhile, is its depiction of people suffering alongside each other and not knowing it — until they realize their mutual plight and join forces to pursue its redress.
This article appears in Mar 23-29, 2016.
Please consider the following as a front page article on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder –
The Transcendental Meditation program has been endorsed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for over 20 years for soldiers with PTSD.
Kindly watch and share with all –
“PTSD and Transcendental Meditation – David George, Infantryman” (2:34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ki4c-XkYsM / excellent!)
and
“Transcendental Meditation Improves Performance at Military University” (5:12;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIH0913lQe0 )
Also see, “Use a Treatment for PTSD That Actually Works” in The Hill, Washington DC
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/262340-use-a-treatment-for-ptsd-that-actually-works
and
“Transcendental Meditation May Reduce PTSD Symptoms, Medication in Active-Duty Personnel” in EurekAlert (01/11/16)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/mcog-tmm011116.php
Thanks!
Bill @ BillsArtBox.com
P.S. Please visit http://www.operationwarriorwellness.org/ for more information.
Note: Results are available for long-standing PTSD symptoms, as well, including for Vietnam Veterans.
Also, see the dramatic effects for Domestic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for women and children, and for PTSD for “First Responders”, at http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/#video=6gM_sXiUPvo (5:24)
Also, from http://www.army.mil/ :
“Transcendental Meditation – a Path to Healing”
“Doctors promised him through medication and hard work he could potentially heal over the course of years, but since transcendental meditation he has moved much closer to achieving his recovery in months.”