Sarasota Contemporary Dance kicks off new performance series with brave dancer

Elizabeth Bergmann recently reprised her one-woman show from the SaraSolo Festival at Sarasota Contemporary Dance’s intimate new studio space. What’s her show about? The answer is in the title: “Coming to Myself.” It’s a saga of self-actualization.

So who is Elizabeth Bergmann, anyway?

In terms of her seriously impressive resume, she’s a distinguished choreographer, dancer, teacher, performer and poet who trained at Juilliard School and taught dance at Harvard University. In terms of her humanity, she’s been a daughter, wife, mother and lover. Ah, but those are just external descriptions. Superficial roles that defined her in terms of other people. In playing those parts, Bergmann lost touch with her true self.

In “Coming to Myself,” Bergmann, 80, begins with that loss. Inauthenticity born of a controlling mother. She had to keep mom happy. She describes her transformation into the fake persona designed to do that. That “adapted child” grew up to become a people-pleasing adult in an unhappy marriage.

Bergmann eventually breaks free of her false self and the bad relationships that trapped her. She expresses her gradual liberation in a powerful, moving metaphor in which she sheds layers of her clothing — a shedding of skin. Ultimately, she’s surprised by the joy of true love that sets her free. The phrase may be a cliché. The reality isn’t. Love brings her back to nature, poetry and her authentic self.

Bergmann’s multimedia performance unfolds in a masterful blend of image, word and motion. The spoken-word portion is first-person, original poetry. Her dance is remarkably fluid and expressive. A slideshow ties it all together with a montage of photos of herself as a younger dancer. Age only makes her fearless fluidity all the more impressive.

Bergmann’s search for self is not self-centered. She expresses herself in universal terms. Like Dante, we all get lost in the middle of our life’s journey. She suggests it’s never too late to find the right path.

Kudos to Sarasota Contemporary Dance for kicking off its In Studio Performance Series with Bergmann’s brave performance. The only minor snag? Before the show, the air-conditioning system sounded like a 747 landing on the roof. Silence quickly followed. Heat did too.

I’m confident they’ll find a cool solution.