A drum beat kicks in. Rajeh starts to move with a palpable frustration, alternately busying himself with small intrinsic gestures of the hands and shaking at all off with shuddering bolts of energy. This switch between the ornate and aggressive aptly captures that feeling of resistance Rajeh wants to capture, the push beyond acceptance. There is little listlessness. As the beats go on Rajeh keeps up to pace, fidgeting and groaning like a waking giant, elegantly sliding past the clumps of basil looking like neat little orchards. Perhaps he is the elephant that will crush the city one day. 

The dance is long, and begins to feel a little like endless venting. In a touching moment Rajeh shares out the pots of basil as a gift for each of us to take home, we hold our herbs up triumphantly. We haven’t been tread on just yet. It’s a heartwarming little shred of hope to take home with us, but feels a tad disconnected from the work as a whole. Though we have direct insight into Rajeh’s thought process and interest in destruction, there feels like a slight disconnect in what we read and what we see on stage—the latter of which is perhaps a tad too simplistic. We never really get to the meat of the topic. In “Dance is Not for Us,” Rajeh creates some gorgeous prose and asks profound questions, how I wish it was all a little more present in his dance.