‘Opheliac’ Dance Review:

For this dance paper, I watched Shelby Taylor’s dance to the song Opheliac by Emilie Autumn. I have many musicians who I like, who’s music isn’t as popular as many artists, nor is much of my music considered the kind one should dance to. Nevertheless, I find myself doing primitive choreography around my apartment. In my mind there is a triumvirate of alternative musicians whose music intrigues me despite how seemingly strange some of the songs may be. In this triumvirate is: Amanda Palmer, Emilie Autumn and Aurelio Voltaire Hernandez.

Since I have already written about choreography to one of Amanda Palmer’s songs, it seems suitable to do one for Emilie Autumn next, and for my third paper, choreography to one of Aurelio Voltaire’s songs. I find Emilie Autumn’s music very movement inducing despite the sometimes-stoic nature of it. Opheliac is anything but stoic, though, since it is based on Ophelia from Hamlet along with the concepts of unrequited love and insanity. I imagine that this dance will be very staccato and jerky as well as emotionally intense, due to the subject matter and the aspect that the song’s narrator is speaking to her lover.

It seems very animalistic, volatile and childlike, which I think is very apropos in regards to the lyrics. The dancer seems to be consciously letting go of all control of her body; flinging herself around, yet also acrobatically contorting herself in very beautiful ways. It’s very violent looking, and somewhat lacking in form. It makes up for that in how she conveys the complete madness of the song. It’s extremely fast and very detailed, compared to some of the other dances I’ve seen.

I’ve never looked up choreography for an Emilie Autumn song, and this is somewhat surprising. Considering the atmospheric choices I could see her music conveyed in a dance as a period piece, and I think it would be magnificent to see something like this as a partner dance with one dancer as the narrator of the song, and the other perhaps as who she is speaking to.

This also looks like a competition, which surprises me. I think that this is far from what the judges expected and wanted, though it is very good! It cuts off very suddenly, which makes me wonder if there was more to the song, though it may have been her choice.