Perfect Imperfections during rehearsal. Photo by Chris Randle.
By Elizabeth Holliday
@femme.path
Perfect Imperfections: The Art of a Messy Life, invites us to accept our own lives with humour, tenderness, and joy. An interdisciplinary piece combining comedy, spoken word, dance, and music, Perfect Imperfections explores an image of contemporary woman’s life with delightful earnestness.
From the first strains of the overture, Juno-nominated Bassist and Composer Jodi Proznick emits an infectious energy. Accompanied by emerging harpist Alexa Reimer, Proznick’s compositions flow and pop, with catchy hooks that have audience members humming on their way out. These musical foundations are paired with creator and performer Celeste Snowber’s poetry, monologues, and movement.
Snowber knows how to engage an audience. Her performance moves from poetic to tender to comedic, bolstered by expert use of her body. Her movements flow from lyrical dance to physical comedy, a balance of “levity and gravity.” But her direct audience address is where she truly shines. Perfect Imperfections is rife with moments of engagement, with Snowber asking for audience suggestions, guiding us in breathing, and bringing the house lights up to admire what a mess we are. A professor in SFU’s Faculty of Education, you can see the teacher in her. A student of Snowber’s in the audience asserted her performance style was very similar to her in-class comportment, and this realism makes the performance all the more affecting.
Watching Perfect Imperfections is often like watching an unprecedentedly entertaining lecture. Drawing largely from lived experience, Snowber explores themes from food, to sensuality, to embracing worry and the messiness of our lives. Of course, true to the work’s title, the execution has its imperfections: dropped lines, small lighting issues. But the cast brings such a casually confident energy that it all feels like part of the experience.
The musical elements truly make the piece. At times Proznick and Reimer improvise to follow Snowber’s lead, requiring them to be intimately in tune with one another. The multigenerational nature of the piece, embodied in this trio, subtly but effectively reinforces the central theme of an embodied womanhood. Reimer’s playing is dynamic and intriguing, and special guest Singer-Songwriter Katherine Penfold is a perfect addition, with a haunting and skillful voice I can’t wait to hear again.
At a little under an hour, the flow of Perfect Imperfections is so good it feels much shorter. But it gives satisfaction in its ending, closing with a celebratory sweetness that buoys the audience out feeling like their own messes could be something close to perfect.
Perfect Imperfections is playing at the Cultch’s Culture Lab June 14-16. Tickets are only $20; get them here.
Elizabeth is a writer, actor, and full-time nerd living on Unceded Coast Salish Territories. With a BA in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, she is passionate about media that challenges norms, beliefs, and mainstream representation. You can find her listening to true crime podcasts and trying to find good places to dance (she’ll take recommendations).
