Brendan Drake’s CEREMONIALS at Dance Place by Juliana Pironti

CEREMONIALS

by Brendan Drake (@brendandrakechoreography)

Co-presented by DC Dance Network (@dcdancenetwork) and Dance Place (@danceplacedc)

Dance Place

Saturday June 27, 7pm

Written by Juliana Pironti

Cover photo by (@e.mertz.photography)

Glitter bombs, paper airplanes, milk, OH MY! Ceremonials, choreographed by Brendan Drake and co-hosted by the DC Dance Network and Dance Place, was truly full of a mystical world of dance that I, personally, have never seen in DC. While I’m hesitant to say it pushed the boundaries of dance, it surely pierced them, serving as a fantastic reminder to the DMV community of all that dance can and should be, forgoing the “technique,” the “rules,” or the social boxes we inevitably create for ourselves by copy-pasting success onto each other’s bodies, or holding onto teachings simply “because that’s the way it has always been done.” This is precisely what I love about dance as an art form: it is elusive. It always brings me back to the question, what is dance? But that’s a discussion for another place and time. Back to the show…

The performance opened with glitter being blown onto us, immediately capturing the audience’s attention in such a fun, playful way. Something about it felt inherently queer, maybe due to my own association of glitter and gayness thanks to the “Glitter and Be Gay” aria in Candide, or 2000s pop star Kesha, who is somewhat of a “gicon” (gay icon) for my generation. Either way, I saw the glitter and I was sat, patiently eager for whatever was to come.

The next scene was an iconography of a religious landscape: dancers posed around a cross in the center, with what appeared to be a bare-butt Jesus wearing half-athleisure clothes. The clothing choices made it clear this was not meant to be a historical replica, but rather brought us squarely into the contemporary. The stillness was interrupted by small, specific head movements. It reminded me of those paintings where the eyes seem to follow you as you move—haunting, yet alluring. This controlled motion progressed into more erratic head movements, eventually consuming the entire body and turning into thrusts that felt like either the end of the world, a primal act of receiving, or both.

I deeply enjoyed how the stunning lighting design worked in tandem with the movement to create seamless transitions.. Everything seemed to appear like magic, or if it was meant to be seen, the visibility felt entirely intentional. It was truly some of the best lighting design I have seen in a while. That, alongside the full use of the space, bare theater walls, curtains being pulled back or used to morph the spacetime continuum, was brilliant.

Two male-presenting dancers caught my eye as they waited in the doorways of the theater. They rested almost lazily, bored, yet poised and watching. They reminded me of little cherubs with their youthful glisten. This feeling was affirmed later by their movement, leg-crossing, and doe-eyed posing, referencing the purity and innocence that cherubs symbolize. But just as quickly as they entered, they left, returning to their witnessing points. This was another well-delivered transitional moment, as the curtains closed to create an amorphous black space, a sort of echo chamber. The dancers seemed out of sorts, fumbling around in a disoriented haze like they’d had too much fun on a night out and were attempting to find their way back.

Then, something truly extraordinary happened. One of the dancers sprung into a handstand and held it, I kid you not, for a minute and a half. Paired with a single spotlight and an operatic score, it created something so divine and spiritual that I never knew a handstand could evoke. That is what made it so good: it wasn’t just that the handstand was physically impressive to hold for so long, but that a movement so simple could suddenly become a beacon of devotion, discipline, and suspension. Enough about the handstand, though I am still thinking about it a month later.

Right before the handstand, there was a small moment where the dancer glanced behind them at another performer making noise in the shadows. It was a comical beat that I appreciated, offering a little glimmer into the dancers not just as bodies serving a context, but as the real people they are offstage. This human connection was mirrored later when paper airplanes were thrown into the audience. Why airplanes? I’m not quite sure—maybe they wanted to check if we were really out there watching (though I didn’t see a single slouched body in the room). Leading me back to the age old question: does the audience always have to know why? Maybe there was a significant historical or personal context to the paper airplanes, but to me, they were just airplanes. That kind of randomness intrigued me and raised questions, which is the ultimate purpose of art, no?

After that divine handstand, the curtains reopened, pulling us out of the echo chamber to give us our first glimpse of nudity. A bare man slowly opened the curtain; we saw just enough to know he was unclothed, but not enough to see everything. I liked that the performer maintained autonomy over what was revealed and what stayed hidden.

The nudity in the show was vulnerable, impactful, and ranged in its casualness, feeling earned and subversive rather than used frivolously for shock value. Seeing the bare human form on stage, especially the queer body, is a powerful statement of body politics, reclaiming space and stripping away the external shame often forced onto non-normative bodies. The only moment that felt slightly distracting was a dancer performing with a single breast exposed. When first revealed, it was striking, evoking images of maternal care and nurturing. However, when the dancer returned moments later still exposed, it threw me off briefly, but ultimately it forced me to question my own internalized biases. Why did I feel any discomfort facing a body simply existing on stage?

Toward the end of the show, the cherubs returned nude. By this point, the wooden cross was back, now hanging upside down, a symbol that, according to a bit of light research, can signify defiance of the church or an act of humility and sacrifice. The cherubs were tied to the cross, slowly turning toward one another without ever fully acknowledging eye contact. They just knew the other was there. As they slowly inched closer, they began to kiss the wooden cross between them. It felt like a deep yearning and desire trapped by inevitability. The cross separating them suggested it was better to have an obstruction than to be unable to desire at all, or perhaps it served as a symbol of how religion constructs obstacles around pure homosexual desire, framing it as “sinful” or “perverted.”

Then came the milk. A body, animalistic yet weakened, crawled toward a bowl of milk on the stage and drank from it, plunging its face fully inside. It felt desperate, quenching, and eventually pleasurable. Another dancer entered the space, pouring milk over themselves and spewing salivated milk onto the first dancer’s open mouth. It captured a raw desire for closeness, a craving to know and be known by someone that completely surpasses any concept of “grossness.” Then came a belch, another raw, human, bodily function usually deemed impolite, here marking the unapologetic finish of an unpleasant yet intimate act.

My palms were clammy as I fitted my hands together in anticipation. Knowing that I, too, have felt this gravitational desire while being confronted with its uncomfortable extremes left me feeling oddly comforted, yet my heart was racing as I sat up straight. Just as I felt the tide of pleasurable discomfort leave my body, the performer tied a string around their neck and their penis to be pulled up toward the audience. We watched them tie it themselves, fully aware that this was an autonomous choice. Why should these extreme desires be kept hidden? This lens of hedonism, pain, and surrender confronts us with the lengths to which we subject our bodies just to feel connected, seen, or liberated.

Finally came the blood bath. Four naked bodies sat in obvious plastic kiddie pools as blood was poured over them, trailing down their skin as the lights gut-wrenchingly slowly faded to black. It left an indelible visual, something so stained, shocking, and visceral that it lingered long after the stage went dark.

This show was fresh, vulnerable, and raw. After observing the vast depths of the body during an evening full of surprises, I left the theater with my friends buzzing with joy, conversation, and questions, and a deepened sense of love for this art form. A beautiful job done by the cast, crew, DC Dance Network, and Brendan Drake.

Juliana Pironti  (she/her) (@julianapironti) is a 2025 graduate of American University, holding a BA in Dance with a minor in Marketing. Originally from Tampa, Florida (and she won’t shut up about it) the beach and sunshine are fundamentally a part of who she is. She is currently an apprentice at Dance Place, where she is honing her passion for dance accessibility and creating community spaces that foster creativity, connection, and laughter!dy, and aims to highlight intersectionalities of all identities and selves! You can read more about Juliana on our STAFF page!