What happens when you realize that your idol isn’t perfect? Or, when you recognize her flaws in yourself? Inspired by these questions, Shannon Dooling created Like a Unicorn in Captivity, a response to and an interpretation of the work of writer and aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The piece incorporates multimedia, spoken word and movement in an exploration of celebrity, hero-worship, identity, relationship, ambition, creativity and duty.

Like a first language, one’s sense of ideal feminine aesthetic is embedded in one’s conscious and subconscious mind as one grows up. Using movement, Xuejuan Feng compares the revered characteristics of strength, candor and outspokenness in the modern American woman with Chinese female archetypes who embody fragility, reserve and reticence. Using sound and speech, she reconstructs in A World Apart… A Heartbeat Away her own initial feelings of confusion and displacement when caught between these two very different aesthetics.