By: James Cirrone

Kreativity rocks the stage with their show “someway, somehow”

The Kreativity Diversity Troupe held their end of semester performance in the Dance Theatre at the Clarice on Wednesday, showcasing diverse performances. 

The show was titled “someway, somehow”, and it featured singing, dancing, spoken word, acting and comedy. All of the acts were written and choreographed by Kreativity’s members. 

The common theme throughout the acts was the idea of resilience. The members all had their unique take on it, but they all seemed to agree that immediately bouncing back isn’t a realistic expectation. Yet, it’s placed on us all the time.

A spoken word collaboration by Gabriella Jones, Karan Takhtani, and Jaaron Alston made this point. Jones spoke about a loved one who was in a car crash, Takhtani spoke about getting cut from the basketball team and Alston talked about the sadness his character was feeling. By the end of the piece they all proclaimed that they were quitting. They were taking a break from trying to stay strong, and giving themselves time to deal with their emotions. 

Another act that got a lot of attention was “From the Ashes”, written and performed by Denisse Peñaflor. She wore a flowing red dress and played a phoenix that recently rose from the ashes. She sought the approval of the audience directly, begging them to clap whenever she did a pose. She then seemed to realize that the approval she was getting was only surface level, with the audience only noticing her beauty. So she tried to initiate an awkward conversation before admitting she wasn’t a natural “conversationalist.” She lamented the fact that people only saw her a beautiful symbol and not a living thing with a desire to socialize with others. She wailed that she didn’t want to die again, as she collapsed to the ground. The music swelled as she collapsed, and then stopped. She was dead, until she of course, slowly rose again, saying to the enthralled audience, “Hello.”

Vivian Yeh, a sophomore studio art and psychology double major, had nothing but praise for Peñaflor’s performance as the mythical bird.

“…At first I thought that it was just a parody of someone trying to dance, but then I realized that it was something much more haunting. I got chills, the actress was so good,” Yeh said.

Rachel Nyakaana-Blair, a senior sociology major, commented on what message she thought Peñaflor’s act was trying to get across, saying that the “nature of performance” is getting “approval from other people.” Performers “have to find bigger purpose” than simply garnering validation from others, she said. 

The show lasted roughly an hour and a half, subjecting the audience to a variety of different emotions. In the act, “The Same Ole’ Story,” Adriana Alonzo played a woman who has sex with her boyfriend, played by Elijah Williams. The condom breaks and she gives birth nine months later to a baby boy, only to have her boyfriend leave her. Distraught, she tries to kill herself, but her gun jams twice. This is when she realizes she has more to live for and that she is going to raise her son by herself. Years later, the man who got her pregnant comes back to meet his son, but she rebukes him, saying that she will do it alone. The woman reveals that her ex-boyfriend’s father had left him, and she asked him a powerful question to end the act: “Why did you become just like him?”

But the act, “Stuck,” was lighthearted and fun. A rather grumpy girl, played by Grace Tietz, is stuck to the ground as a result of her magician arch-nemesis. But in the time that she’s stuck, she gets to slow down and reevaluate things. She meets wacky people and helps them in small ways, giving her a new sense of purpose.

Tietz broke the fourth wall later on in the show, telling the audience that Kreativity is an important creative outlet for a STEM major like her. Kailee Goldberg, a freshman Kreativity member and theater and public policy double major, added to her fellow Tietz’s sentiment by saying what Kreativity means to her.

“I have always loved theater growing up, so finding an outlet to be creative was really important to me for college. And then, I gained a family. Kreativity really is a family,” she said.