Mellow Drama
In-Creation
Becca Hoback
Premiere July 2025
DancEast Collective’s Artist in Residence program hosted the first phase of this creative process - Fall 2024
Photo by Ben Hoback at BACKSTAGE’s Moon Phase Lab
Mellow Drama is a burlesque-style contemporary performance that is bold, sensual, satirical, and playfully rebellious in spirit. With a playful voiceover narration, the performance invites audiences into a character’s journey through and hard-earned realizations about her upbringing in conservative Christian purity culture. Comparing the effects of high academic pressure, gender roles, and strict ballet training with the black-and-white thinking of a fundamentalist Christian’s notion of “purity,” the highly-stylized narrator’s storytelling reveals and pokes fun at the logical faults and mental gymnastics involved in abiding by these purity teachings. Offering catharsis in the form of hilarity, Mellow Drama invites audiences in to understand how ingrained beliefs affect the course of our lives.
Mellow Drama consists of:
Maturation | Jubilation | Damnation
Mellow Drama Premiere
at Kindling Arts Festival
“Brilliant solo choreographer and performer Becca Hoback delivers another section of her powerful dance-theater works from The Sacral Series.”
- Kindling Arts Festival
Mellow Drama is a burlesque-style contemporary performance that is bold, sensual, satirical, and playfully rebellious while featuring Hoback’s virtuosic choreographic style. With overtures to old Hollywood and cabaret acts, the lively performance invites audiences into a journey through one character’s hard-earned realizations about her upbringing in conservative Christian purity culture. Among the devices Hoback employs to complete her storytelling are highly-stylized narration, puppetry, interactive props, beautiful costumes, and even a Judy Garland-inspired musical number. Offering catharsis in the form of hilarity, Mellow Drama invites audiences in to understand how ingrained beliefs affect the course of our lives – sometimes with unexpectedly dark consequences.
VENUE:
Kindling Arts Festival - Darkhorse Theater
4610 Charlotte Ave - Nashville, TN 37209
PERFORMANCES:
Friday, July 25 at 8:30PM
Sunday, July 27 at 1PM