A ‘Kaleidoscope’ of Complex Emotional Survival

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Cooperative Performance explores cycles of abuse and recovery in Kaleidoscope, a dance theater piece in the cozy space at Danceworks. The white frame of a doorway rests between two implied rooms. Kaitlyn Moore and Dana Leone Strothenke bring the complexities of emotional survival to the stage as a couple of women simultaneously recover from abusive relationships in a journey which feels considerably more expansive than its 50-minute runtime.

The doorway is all that’s on stage. Costuming is casual. The production doesn’t weight itself down with anything other than motion, emotion and the pulse of the narrative. The two rooms inhabited by the two survivors serve as prisons. The only way out of one is into the other. Their abusers can enter and exit freely.

Thom Cauley and Maelen Kloskey play the antagonists in relationships that gracefully bristle with emotional gravity. Creator-director Emily Elliott allows the relationships on both sides of the door enough time to develop a real sense of emotional connection between each pair, which gradually mutates into abuse. This serves as a firm foundation for the emotional pain and loss that follows when the abusive relationships are finally dissolved.

Sandra Hollander and Caitlyn Nettesheim play to the emotional support dynamic that survivors of abuse struggle within the course of recovery. The relations between survivors, supporters and abusers on both sides of the door reverberate against each other in beautifully bittersweet echoes. By the end of the hour, abuse and recovery cycles back in on itself in a strikingly powerful narrative that concisely breathes insight into the nature of human connection. It’s only 50 minutes onstage, but it’s an experience well beyond the movements of any clock.

Through Oct. 26 at Danceworks Studio Theatre, 1661 N. Water St. For tickets, visit cooperativeperformance.org.