OBJECT., part of KAIROS’ MINISTRY of FEMME  Project, is an evening-length, multi-media, dance theater performance, exploring the feminine experience, the question of gender, and the resilience present in communities of survivors, femmes, and women.

The age-old stories passed down to us in lore and song, plastered on billboards and in magazines, consumed in movies and television, bind femininity to specific roles. They describe exactly how to look and how to act. They prescribe, how to exist in our own bodies and minds. Society’s endless obsession with the sexualizing and objectifying of the female form shapes cultural norms across the globe, affecting body image and self-identity, limiting the representation of females in positions of power and ultimately, contributing to the continued acts of violence against women. Through the examination of media driven archetypes and clichés, OBJECT. exposes the world of unattainable standards created by gender stereotypes and the damaging effects of feminine objectification.

Set to music by Ani DiFranco, Annie Lennox, Beastie Boys, Robert Palmer, DJ Fraction, Rachel’s and Fiona Apple, the choreography blends contemporary dance, pole dance, and video dance, and draws inspiration from iconic images generated by Hollywood and the fashion industry; poetry by Eve Ensler, Maya Angelou, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; and personal stories from female-identifying community members. The dancers perform in and out of 7-inch platform stilettos and smile-masks, vacillating, sometimes violently, between myth and truth. Fashion designer Carlos Villamil, filmmaker Lindsay Caddle Lapointe, lighting designer Lynda Rieman, and visual artist Corinne Chase add dimensions of texture and imagery that intensify the physical story-telling.