A Salable Hark Lure: The Unraveling

The brave new work, A Salable Hark Lure: The Unraveling, from Portland choreographer Sarah-Luella Baker, tackles the complex theme of white supremacist culture through a multimedia performance that mixes live original music, dance and projected imagery. Baker and her collaborators, who are all white, middle-aged women, explore their own issues with white identity and racism through the sub-themes of toxic masculinity, capitalism, animism and female trauma.

This new work explores the concept of performance as healing, the layered nuances of white supremacist culture, and the paradoxes of being with each other within a community. The concept for the performance emerged with the first section of the triptych performed in 2019 as part of the New Expressive Works Residency series. Audience feedback from that experience informed the creation of the triptych’s other two sections. All three sections, which Baker calls “visions”, will be performed as a triptych in A Salable Hark Lure: The Unraveling.