[spacer height=”0.1px”]Marcus David
November 2025
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When it comes to beauty the idea of forced conformity is as old as time and Tamar Rogoff’s Drop Dead…Gorgeous takes on this notion with a dazzling and poignant tale of beauty standards run amok.
La Mama once again makes a strong social statement with this production presenting us a dystopian future where an over-the-top media exerts impossible pressure on the society through its relentless emphasis on visual content and social comparison eventually leading to ghastly outcomes, and sadly we may already be there.
Research has indicated social media apps like Instagram can be quite harmful to young women with potential negative effects that include body dissatisfaction, lower self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and an increased risk for eating disorders. Our tech overlords seem indifferent to this despicable plight as they push us into more totalitarian systems that not only create limitations on our freedom as our choices become more restricted and commodified when it comes to beauty but they also rake in the big bucks while doing it.
Using a game show format a flamboyant TV host floats down from the heavens in an opening reminiscent of the Fellini’s 8 1/2, only to take command and force a wildly skewed idea of physical perfection down our throats, a vision that he pursues cruelly and relentlessly and ultimately leading to death.
The TV game show gives the contestants the chance to win their dream body and as they compete to shed pounds, gain inches, and reverse the aging process, but things get disrupted when a storm knocks the power out at which point the high tech media transmission gives way to images of the natural world. Scenes of tempest and serenity are beautifully projected and a multimedia dance performance shows us what beauty really is. The motif of the three graces plays well as what is perceived to be imperfection on television becomes pure and simple beauty in nature. This approach plucks the contestants from the world of the game and returns them to paradise—their birthright, where all bodies can be experienced as sensual and worthy.
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Drop Dead…Gorgeous
Written, Directed, & Choreographed by Tamar Rogoff
La Mama
October 17 – November 2, 2025
The Downstairs
66 East 4th Street, NYC
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La MaMa builds audiences that are integral to the creative process. Our local and global community members who gather in our physical, digital, and hybrid spaces to see new work, are often the first audience for that work. The audience response helps to shape the evolution of the piece for the artist, and is an essential part of the creative ecosystem that La MaMa nurtures. La MaMa believes art is a force for change. Violence, discrimination, and systemic racism will not stop without a unified resistance. La MaMa is committed to battling bigotry and intolerance in all its forms, and to providing inclusive spaces for our local, national, and global community.
