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AUDIENCE REVIEW: The Community Room - A Review of Beatriz Castro and Johnny Butler at Westfest

Company:
Beatriz Castro and Johnny Butler presented by Westfest : All Over

Performance Date:
May 4th , 2025

Freeform Review:

It’s hard to watch dance these days. 

It’s not hard to find, but it can be challenging to find the emotional bandwidth to commit to (and with) a performance at times. As a dancer, trying to enjoy a dance performance means removing any analytical lens to stay present and open but doing more than an unaware sideline supporter. I feel like lately I’ve been carrying my whole life with me in every room like an overfilled tote bag. Dance wants to come to you in an instant, spontaneously and wistfully, to release you from the past and place you in the current moment. 

On May 4th I had the pleasure of catching Westfest : All Over at the historic and frankly cavernous Westbeth building. I didn’t make big plans to see this show but instead impulsively caught it as I happened to be in the building. 

Westfest : All Over is fun because its tasks creators to generate site-specific work throughout the campus where movement isn’t usually provoked including the library, the roof garden, and a very spacious basement. 

What resonated with me most was the tour’s opener - the community room. 

The community room is ill-defined because all it really would be is a small, dark room with little in it but a piano, an even smaller kitchen, and a lot of blank white walls. 

Upon entering with the audience almost large enough to fill the room, we see an unlit room with the only light source coming a door shaped opening in the kitchen. In the kitchen, there’s a young, female-presenting woman (we’ll call them Beatriz) quietly and intently baking something while disregarding the audience. The tour guide leads us around the corner to the piano, and it’s just lit enough to see a figure (Johnny) playing something dark but sentimental. As we gather around Johnny, a projection of Beatriz plays on the furthest wall. Clips and pieces of their day, loose ends of conversations by the stovetop, and an intent stirring play while Johnny opens up into something more dreamlike and nostalgic, as if we’re watching the unfiltered memories of a dream. 

The projection ends, and Johnny stands and walks over to the window-opening of the kitchen. Now playing a saxophone, rips into something more surreal and tonally charged to invoke Beatriz into movement. They move very slyly at first, then take to the windowsill for some impressionistic and frankly gorgeous imagery. It feels as though they’re trying to escape the kitchen yet are defined by it. The song and dance end together, and Beatriz falls from the windowsill gracefully with their feet down on the other side with the audience. Beatriz then promptly walks back into the kitchen and offers the crowd what they’ve been working on - cookies. 

The artist’s names are Beatriz Castro and Johnny Butler. 

The piece hit me in just the right place at the right time like a breeze. I’ve always had to bring myself to dance and never has it been given to me in a nice little Tupperware container. I don’t know the exact purpose of the community room but I know Beatriz and Johnny’s work belonged in it. I am very grateful to have witnessed dance in the moment and hope to see it all over again. 

Author:
Caleb Patterson

Photo Credit:
Photos by Isabelle Perkins