By Mike Templeton
This year’s Cincinnati Fringe Festival will include something quite close to our hearts at the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition. Local theater and dance company Pones Inc. will be offering “Somewhere Over the Holler,” sharing Queer rural and Appalachian stories through film, dance, drag, burlesque, and movement. Produced by Know Theater of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Fringe Festival is our premier local theater festival, bringing us the absolute best of contemporary theater for 25 years, and spreading out across the city to transform Cincinnati into its festival grounds. This year’s festival runs from May 30 to June 14.
In “Somewhere Over the Holler,” Pones, Inc. brings their particular forms of dance and movement to present experiences not often represented in the arts or the media. The experiences of rural Queer people in Appalachia are articulated through movement and interpretive physical theater. Kim Popa is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Pones, and she explained that “Pones’ mission is to uplift voices that are underrepresented, and this piece fully supports that mission.” Popa also said the original idea for the show came from Hattie Clark, a Pones member, whose family is steeped in Appalachian ancestry and one who knows from their own life the unique experiences of being Queer in a rural and Appalachian world.
Hattie Clark said the show will present many stories in addition to hers, and this means employing multiple ways of telling stories. Clark talked to me about growing up in Lebanon, Kentucky, in a county adjacent to Appalachia, and coming to realize their Queer identity while studying at Northern Kentucky University. It was around the time they graduated that they realized that “there wasn’t a resource for preserving Queer stories in rural Kentucky, and often those stories are forgotten. I wanted to create something which would make sure those stories would live on.”
“Somewhere Over the Holler” is a major step toward preserving these stories. Clark emphasizes the multi-dimensional features of this performance, and the ways Pones develops their particular form of telling stories and conveying themes. Clark explains: “Performance art is so important to the LGBTQ community. Drag allows individuals to explore gender. Burlesque allows individuals to be comfortable in their bodies. Dance and music allows for exploration when words fail.” That unknown moment where words fail might well be the essential moment for everything Pones does when it comes to dance and performance.
Pones Inc. was founded in 2008. Their mission is to provide artistic opportunities for community growth by creating engaging new ways for audiences to experience dance. Over the years they have collaborated with hundreds of artists and almost 200 groups toward using movement and dance as a form of creative expression and human growth. The Pones website explains, “performers use their bodies to speak their minds.” This kind philosophy has led to a form of theatrical performance that is perfectly suited to the expression of under-represented voices like the LGBTQIA+ communities in Appalachia and other rural areas. With people such as Hattie Clark contributing her own story, Pones has been able to channel the stories of many others into this powerful performance.
In addition to stories from Pones members, the show is based on and includes interviews with people whose experiences form the basis of the performances. Kim Popa told me that many of the cast members are Appalachian. She noted Marrow Kretzer who “is presenting a deeply personal piece about their relatives and their lineage and how their trans masculinity related to the men in their ancestry who died in the Van Lear Mine Disaster of 1935.” Even as “Somewhere Over the Holler” provides a distinctly contemporary mode of storytelling in the form of modern dance and creative movement, the subjects of the show are often deeply rooted in Appalachian history and ancestry. These are the kinds of connections that are absolutely central to so much of what we do at UACC. Popa makes the historical link explicit as she explains that “the show itself was rooted in interviews of folks from rural and Appalachian areas and the themes that continued to develop as we conducted these interviews – isolation, queer, joy, religious influence, community, etc. These are featured in the documentary-style film within the production.” This performance will ultimately be a multi-media production that relies primarily on the kinds of movement and dance that is at the heart of all that they do at Pones.
“Somewhere Over the Holler” mixes many modes and genres in the way it tells and evokes stories and experiences. People are likely to be moved in many directions, and this is precisely the point. The ways Pones develops movement toward the expression and thought and feeling is meant to tap into every part of what it means to be human. Perhaps the most important thing to say about this performance is summed up by Kim Popa who told me this: “We elevate queer joy, pride in our culture, grit, hard work, and an unwavering commitment to move forward. This work is crucial because we aim to honor a community whose rights are under threat and whose voices are being silenced. We seek to combat isolation and help people feel seen.” Pones will deliver all that and more with “Somewhere Over the Holler.”
For people familiar with Cincy Fringe Festival, “Somewhere Over the Holler” will offer some of what they have come to expect from our local theater festival its long history of bringing us the best drama, comedy, dance, and contemporary theatrical productions. Fringe Festival has long been our best opportunity to see the newest and most challenging works in modern theater. “Somewhere Over the Holler” by Pones Inc. will be a magnificent fit. This production crosses over into so much of our work in the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, and it is tremendously exciting to see what Pones Inc. is doing at this year’s Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Again, the Cincinnati Fringe Festival runs from May 30 to June 14. It takes place at multiple sites around the city, so check the website for where and when to see the shows. “Somewhere Over the Holler” will be at Gabriel’s Corner, 1425 Sycamore St at the corner of Sycamore & Liberty. Full information is at the websites below.
The full listing of “Somewhere Over the Holler” is at this website: https://cincyfringe.com/somewhere-over-the-holler/.
Complete information for Cincinnati Fringe Festival is at this website: https://cincyfringe.com/.
More information on Pones Inc. can be found on their website: https://pones.org/.
Michael Templeton is a writer, and independent scholar. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir published with Erratum Press and Impossible to Believe, published by Iff Books. He is also the author of Collected Apoems, forthcoming from LJMcD Communications and the awaiting of awaiting: a novella, with Nut Hole Publishing. Check out his profile in UACC’s Cultural Directory. He has published numerous articles and essays on contemporary culture and works of creative non-fiction as well as experimental works and poetry. He lives in West Milton, Ohio with his wife who is an artist.