An Evening with Einstein's Daughters
Impressions by Sarah
Photos by James Radke

Einstien's Daughters is a dance theatre production by Kim Epifano of Epiphany Porductions on January 17-26, 2003 at the Cowell Theatre at Fort Mason in San Francsico, California. Conceived & Directed by Kim Epifano, Dancers & Musicians- Sri Louise, Fredrika Keefer, Sally Davis, Kim Epifano, Kate Regan, Richard Kittle-rigging, many more helped with lighting, sound, costuming, grant writing, funding, babysitting, etc...

Picture a black stage. A woman enters from oblivion, wild haired, and playing an accordian. She laughs. Her laughter carries the weight and release of the entirety of a woman - the young maiden, the mother, the wise crone.

Illuminated, she speaks through mechanized air, defying gravity with her heavy words.
Mileva was the name of Einstein's first wife. They had a daughter out of wedlock. Mileva was the name of a gifted mathematician. She was Einstein's first wife and bore him two sons. Mileva was a name that was nearly forgotten. She may have been Einstein's partner in relativity.
Einstein's Daughter's, a dance performance conceived and directed by Kim Epifano, firmly asserts that Mileva Einstein's potential as a mathematician was thwarted by marriage and childbirth. This was a shockingly relevant portrayal of the struggle of women to combine the creative with the scientific. Does one aspect take over as it did for Mileva? Can there be no balance? Do pots and pans that dance and clang before us mean more than light - than science - than thought? What choices are left when the mouths at the table hunger for bread and not for knowledge? If we make one choice, does that cancel out all other choices? Does an equation have only one answer?

What if we don't like the answer?

A child enters in darkness. Runs. The lights creep up to reveal a girl in flight. Circling like the light. Spiraling in and down, touching ground, reaching out, taking flight.

Chalkboard scrawls. Planetary distance. Distance. Reflection. Proximity. When Einstein was far away she loved him dearly. Letters were sent. When Einstein was close at hand her hair came down. Letters were not sent. Something in her changed. Her dance became bent on itself. Light became a sorrowful craving rather than a heavenly dream. Separation. She is surrounded by the light but cannot touch it. She is in her dream but not the way she wanted.
 
And what is a dream but spinning cylinder of light? Can't reach the source. Can't hold the light. But the dream is not the cylinder. Some of us want more than an empty shell - than a husk of a life. Perhaps Einstein was the physical embodiment of Mileva's dream. While he held the light, he also functioned as a way to keep her away from the light.
 
Center stage, Sri Louise danced as Mileva. She was flanked by the maiden Fredrika Keefer, and the wise Kim Epifano. Einstein's lost daughters spun baskets of light, danced with pierced cylinders of light, turned in reflections of light, and stood full on without hesitation in the strength of their own radiant light.
 
These last two photos were taken
by Andy Mogg
ed- Sri as featured more resently in the Oakland Tribune after getting beat up by the Oakland Police Department. Sri along with others in their "Yoga for Peace" group as a protest against the war in Iraq were blocking terminals at the Port of Oakland entrance by doing yoga poses in the gateway. OPD arrested 50 out of 500 protesters along with injuring 8 protester and 6 longshoreman who were just waiting to go to work. The OPD had just received flack for not reacting strongly enough when footbal fans vanadalized local businesses. Apparently they couldn't make the distinction between looser Raider fans vandalizing stores and peaceful demonstrators in yoga poses. The targeted terminals had just signed lucrative contracts to run the recently captured ports in Iraq.

 

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