Sunday August 19, 2012 - As part of the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival, Nejla Yatkin presented OASIS: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Middle East But Were Afraid to Dance at Theater 80, St Mark's Place. I'd been to a couple of rehearsals of this work so I had a good idea of what to expect; the dancers - sexy and beautiful - outdid themselves, and the piece held the audience in rapt silence and was very warmly applauded.
OASIS resonates with issues that are not always pleasant to contemplate, and while one could simply observe the movement and inhale the fragrant music, there's much to ponder: torture, suppression of women, rape, strict adherence to now-meaningless customs, lack of personal freedom of expression.
The work opens as two dancers appear in silhouette behind gauzy white curtains: the step forth, blindfolded, and commence a duet that is both sensuous and mystical. Clad only in the briefest of flesh-toned costumes, Nejla Yatkin and Fadi Khoury seem utterly self-possessed as they bend and sway to the enticing rhythms. Removing their bilndfolds, the duet takes a turn for the more passionate.
After a solo for Fadi - a sinuous mover - three men (Ahmaud Culver, Shay Bares and Jean-Rene Homehr) appear ominously with flashlights and rope whips. Fadi is tortured, almost too realistically; his gasps and screams are truly upsetting. But as an ironic counterweight, the detached voice of a TV newscaster talks about waterboarding with all the emotion of reading a weather forecast. Nejla, Sevin Ceviker and Rachel Holmes appear and perform ritual minitrations to Fadi's corpse, wrapping him in a black shroud.
Sevin and Rachel commence a gently swaying dance, joined by the boyishly beautiful Shay Bares. The three are then abducted and raped; the women will eventually be imprisoned (rape being the woman's fault, of course) while Shay is further degraded by his captor. Taking up finger cymbals, Shay performs a subtly erotic solo until his master throws a veil over him and whisks him away.
In a witty interlude, there is a fashion show. All the dancers - male and female - appear in the heavy veils and all-covering robes. Someone once remarked that it's no fun being a drag queen in a Muslim country: no one can tell anyway.
As OASIS moves to its conclusion, a cache of books is discovered and the dancers devour them with eager curiosity. "Women, do you know your rights?" a detached voice asks. "How can I know my rights when I don't have any?" comes the reply.