With strains of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” greeting arriving audience members then repeating when Roussève took to the stage that consisted of only two chairs and a lamp (uncredited), he began moving his body as if he were doing contact improvisation—with himself. As startling as this was, when he sat in an easy chair and recounted his birth in 1959—in the voice of his mother!—this reviewer was already fully immersed in his unique story, one constructed in three parts, “Love,” “Family,” “Freedom.” 

Indeed, with his uncanny ability to create dialects and personages, Roussève wove a tale that began with a white Jewish doctor delivering him in a segregated Houston, Texas hospital, declaring his name to be ‘David,’ That’s David, as in King-of-the-Jews’ David. But this child wanted to play, not to rule—with Barbies and other dolls. And so it began, this fascinating saga that jumped back and forth in time, one that was abetted by Meena Murugesan’s video design, as Roussève leaped ahead to summer 1992 and Dance Space Project. 

This is where he would meet his future husband, dancer Conor McTeague, and begin a relationship that would symbolize love, grief and all things in between for some 29 years. But first, Roussève, addressing his audience throughout as “Y’all,” told of White flight and how his parents were able to buy a house in 1965. He also, in a more somber tone, softly spoke of being raped by an older male cousin when he was a mere six years old. 

This recounting did not, however, ask for pity, but explained, instead, Roussève’s “disengagement” and something he would come to call his “superpower.” Cue Nina Simone singing, “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” with d. Sabela grimes’ sound design pitch-perfect, throughout. Here, Roussève, whether moving his arms as if trying to stay afloat in a sea of troubles or spinning a yarn that manages to capture a person, place or time, speaks of his suspicions of Conor, wondering if the love of his life is having an affair with another man.