PRESS
From the Los Angeles Times:
"Compelling...Sakamoto
the choreographer approaches the unsparing power of perhaps the starkest,
most pitiless 'Rite' thus far created." - Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"Shades of German dancemaker Pina Bausch crossed with Woody Allen." - Donna Perlmutter, Los Angeles Times
"Seductive...poetic...transformative...wistful... A commanding performer with large, expressive hands...a dramatic tour de force." - Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
"And what about the female lust for sex? One felicitous routine featured a young woman (the excellent Rochelle Fabb) and man, presumably on a date in a car. They dance a humorous pantomime of sexual feelings, her body undulating in weirdly erotic movements as if no brain guided them...This piece was blissfully ambivalent, unsullied by a lesson plan." - Los Angeles Times
"It is the some of the solos that will linger most in memory. Rochelle Fabb entered in a wheelchair, looking like old Miss Havisham at her most decrepit and gradually peeled away layers of clothing to reveal a bespangled strippers body -and she did it without plastic surgery." - Los Angeles Times
From the LA Weekly:
"Transcendent...dreamlike...riveting." - LA Weekly
"Satiric...savvy...spot-on." - Peter Frank, LA Weekly
"Sakamoto's
gift for physical nuance lends a quiet, evocative grandeur to the maelstrom
of performance elements and nutty script of his Rite." - LA Weekly
"Satirizes the commodification in today's sound-bite culture. Sakamoto moves like a marionette with stylized syncopation, continually molding his face into different expressions for each character as if organically donning and shedding masks." - LA Weekly
"She continues to poke fun at everything stereotypically female, from glamour shots to hysterical suicide attempts to adolescent dreams of baton twirling, in this humorous yet disturbingly voyeuristic devolution of girlhood" - LA Weekly
"Fierce, diabolical, but human and vulnerable at its core. In one swell foop, Sakamoto has rewritten film history and introduced Chi Theory into the larger discourse." - Peter Frank, LA Weekly
"Unquestionably compelling...fascinating... Sakamoto speaks entire passages with a single movement, subtly striking deep chords...an intelligent, emotionally stirring story that's wrought with pathos." - LA Weekly
"Mesmerizing...rare and strange and somehow beautiful." - Sasha Anawalt, KCRW Dance Notes
"The Flashdance homage a la Nancy Reagan alone may be well worth the price of admission." - Los Angeles Magazine
National press:
"Excellently demonstrates butoh's potential." - Rita Felciano, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Sakamoto creates expressionist theater that evokes the mysterious, the withering and the tongue-in-cheek." - The San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Fabb
holds nothing back in her charged installations. Her body convoluting in the
back seat of a car in one performance, her dress covered in blood red cherries
in another...her outrageous style is more than simple entertainment. By addressing
taboo topics head-on, Fabb sends a message to women around the world: Take
back your innocence and be free." - Boston Magazine
"A riveting and powerful work; it's a shocker. Fabb has a rare gift for synthesizing the diverse elements of performance art into a singular, coherent language. She gives enormous attention to the arrangements of events within the performing space...massive theatrical power." - Boston Herald
"Fabb's productions are a unique blend of sharp theatricality and subversive, sexually charged and visceral performance art." - Art New England
"In 'At First Blush' Rochelle Fabb explores the roles and behaviors that our society imposes on women. The show is subversive, hilarious, absurd and ultimately poignant and right on the money - as well as equally entertaining and enlightening for audiences of every gender and orientation." - Stuff Magazine
"Los Angeles based performance artist Rochelle Fabb is crazy, sexy and cool. Her career, has taken her from Hollywood to Berlin and Marnay-sur-Seine." - Boston Phoenix
"Fabb uses her body to evoke sexuality (and) delivers an off-kilter view of eroticism that provokes thought and sometimes outrage. Disgust with narrow-mindedness takes on a decidedly abstract edge in Fabb's art." - Boston's Weekly Dig
"Fabb ablutes, self-mutilates, twirls a baton and otherwise acts out in a series of scene-lets about what it means to be a woman. Fabb's extraordinarily expressive face and body (and the visual imagery she creates) are fascinating. Lots of it is funny, too." - Philadelphia City Paper
"Executed with considerable style and emotional feeling. Views from the humorous to the sensual and from the spiritual to the absurd are boldly and inventively juxtaposed." - Easy Reader
"Sakamoto's gestures - economical and anguished - provided a glimpse into an act of heroic transformation." - Allan Ullrich, The Voice of Dance
International press:
"Known
for her unique style, Rochelle Fabb juxtaposes innocence and violence with
brio. Her representations seduce and transport the public into unknown territories. Rochelle
Fabb is truly fascinating" - L'Est-Eclair (FRANCE)
"Sets up a dialectic between the high gloss commercial art world and unmediated, 'authentic' human expression and interaction." - Flash Art International