PANTYHOSE, COMBAT BOOTS
and the Search for the Right Tool
and the Search for the Right Tool
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
7pm
Saint Michaels College
Macarthy Art Center
Burlington, VT 05401
FREE ADMISSION
This hour and fifteen minute one woman performance is an interesting mixture of theater, movement and storytelling. With two chairs, a large amount of white fabric and layers and layers of black clothing, this performance is artistically creative, funny and poignant. Performed and written by Lida Winfield with the co-direction of Matt Wohl, Winfield tells personal stories about growing up. “Let’s be honest, it is hard to navigate through the adult world when your tool set is still incomplete.” The show is broken into clips of flashbacks from age five to the present day with movement and music linking them together. Though the stories are personal, the themes are universal. Winfield invites the audience in as she hunts for of the perfect “hair-do.” The show is very funny on top of being insightful, as Winfield takes the audience back to her need for lipstick and direction. Pantyhose, Combat boots and the Search for the right Tool is not only a performance about coming of age but about the human experience of finding one’s spot…place…home. The challenge of what we want and hope for verses what actually happens. “Sometimes life gets in the way of what we imagine it should be.” This performance is about being in touch with the painfulness of growing, becoming and surviving things one could never have imagined. “We want to think that we know, but you have to live your way into life, and often that is something one can’t prepare for.”
The visual beauty of the performance is equally as captivating as the stories themselves. Winfield is a dancer who uses movement to complement her words. Her unusual style pours through the performance and is very welcoming to both the dancer and the non-dancer eye.
Lida Winfield is a Vermont native who recently returned to the area. She has been performing and teaching professionally for the past ten years. Pantyhose, Combat Boots and the Search for the right Tool was created by Winfield several years ago. With the help of Matt Wohl the show has been revamped.
