Dancing Girl

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

On the bare black curtain draped stage of The Denver Victorian Playhouse, storyteller, Thordis Simonsen takes her audience on an incredible journey from Denver to Greece.

Through her animated storytelling. Simonsen introduces her audience to the small village, Elika, in Greece. A once-upon-a-time roommate inspired her. Although originally she taught biology, an opportunity to teach anthropology grabbed her, slightly ironic since she held no background in the subject. What she had going for her was an intense curiosity. Learning as she taught wasn’t enough. She wanted more, which is where the roommate came in. If she could immerse herself in another culture, hands on experience would provide a depth in cultural anthropology no book could give. A relative of the roommate living in Elika was exactly the contact this blond American woman needed.

Originally, she planned on writing a book on the history and cultural development of the people who lived in the village. It would give her hands on anthropological experience.

Another story, a far more important story, began to grow and gnaw within her: her story. The result of her odyssey was Dancing Girl, An American Woman’s Greek Village Odyssey.

Simonsen’s journey is by itself a story of evolution. She discovered a willingness within to follow her journey wherever and however it took her. Therein by itself lies an incredible lesson everyone growing up in today’s wild technological world growing smaller by the day, could benefit from: that life journeys need not keep anyone fenced in by a box of limitations.

Teaching Biology, a whim for anthropology led her to teaching it, which led her to wanting hands on experience, leading her to capturing a village through photography, leading to recording the individual stories, leading to writing her own story, leading her to rebuild a house unused for 70 years except as a sheep corral, which led to her book, which led to her taking to the stage as a storyteller.

Simonsen begins with a brief introduction of the how’s, why’s and wherefore’s, accompanied with Greek music punctuated by Greek dance.

ith a staff, a bell, a stool, and a red scarf, she tells the story of The Pomegranate. Martha, a widowed goatherd, and Andonis, a goatherd and widower, were forbidden to marry by Greek tradition. He could. She couldn’t. With separate herds of goats, they shared the equivalent of a duplex, a double hut. Sleeping in separate beds, cooking on separate stoves, eating separately, grazing their herds in different directions, Simonsen’s curiosity drove her to seek out these two people. Why would Martha defy tradition, risk the shunning of family and friends to live side-by-side separate lives with Andonis? What did they have in common? What did they share? The two didn’t talk about it with her. In fact, the two didn’t seem to talk with each other at all. Only after Martha’s grave illness that took her away to another village, only after experiencing Andonis’ inconsolable grief, and traveling to the nearby village to visit with the failing Martha, did Simonsen discover the incredible bond between the two, a pomegranate.

To signify the changing of stories, Simonsen rings an antique goat bell.

In Dancing Girl she tells the wonderful story of Irini a goatherd who danced with her goats. She danced with her goats to celebrate life. She danced with her goats to energize herself during hardships. She instructed her friends and family not to mourn her death when the time came. It would be a time to dance, to party. “Wear red, not black.” The red scarf Simonsen uses as a scarf, an apron, a shirttail, she bought in Athens specifically for Irini’s funeral celebration. When it happened, the storyteller was in the states performing, and the red scarf took on a greater significance to keeping Irini’s memory alive.

Describing vividly, her adventures in the small village, she covers some of the tough times, the difficult times that allowed her to grow, centering on An Unwelcome Bedfellow. This is the point where she came face to face with herself when many people would have packed up and just gone home. She didn’t. She followed the path until it took her out of the lonely cold valley.

In Eggs But No Hens, Simonsen delves into the incredible generosity of the village from people who knew her, people who knew who she was and didn’t know her.

In The Fundamental Note, she describes the house she found, the roofless, house she rebuilt stone by stone, chink by chink, lugging stones from the road 60 kilometers away down a hill. Rolling and walking boulders too heavy to carry. It never occurred to her she couldn’t do it. She just knew she would and could. Here was an American woman doing man’s work, unheard of in this small village that had carefully defined roles, and an unmarried woman at that.

A gifted storyteller Simonsen does indeed pull her audience into her journey, her world to the Greek village that now considers her to be one of their own. Upstairs in the Victorian, she has on display photographs of the people she describes, of the house before and after.

Personable, an honest, wearing her heart on her sleeve, Simonsen’s expressions and tones change easily and naturally as she walks the audience through her varied experiences meeting new emotions and tantalizing thoughts. She captures the heart and soul of individual villagers who greet her with warmth and who greet her with skepticism, who greet her with confusion, who greet her with questions, who all strike a different chord and melody with in her.

To add to her stories, I would like to see her add Greek music between the stories, with more dancing. I would like her to project photographs onto the back of the stage of the village and the people she describes, of the picking of onions, the picking of olives, scenes from the village itself, the café where everyone gathers that certainly in no way shape or form would resemble a Starbuck’s. Although the passion for her life, the enthusiasm for her journey comes through loudly and clearly. The tears, the laughter, the struggles, the connection with the people, their stories, their development into the technological age, it would definitely add to the drama of the story to visually see what she saw, to visually absorb what she absorbed. The view from her house that blinded her to a roofless sheep corral, could definitely add depth to an already incredible journey. (See Interview: Dancing Girl On My Porch).

After each performance, Simonsen conducts a talk back session to answer questions that pop into the imagination during her story telling. Dancing Girl is a rich rewarding experience that quite frankly should not be missed. Far more than a geographical journey between Denver and Greece, far more than a cultural anthropological experiment, Dancing Girl is a journey into the soul where it meets the essence of celebrating life eyeball to eyeball.