Yoga practitioners (even wimpy ones like myself) know well the blissful release from the physical body that accompanies the quiet cool-down at the end of a heated session. Orlando Fringe patrons can experience that ethereal endorphin rush vicariously without doing a single downward dog by witnessing Julie Leir in her meditative movement piece Shedding Skin.
Leir slowly shuffles on stage to the strains of ethereal new age instrumental music (designed by her with Zane VanSickle), stalking the room’s perimeter with jangling chains bound around each ankle and sleeves of nude fabric swaddling every limb. With increasing agitation, she starts peeling layers of dead flesh from her palms like a molting snake, wrestling to unbind herself until she stands before her audience entirely unclothed. But even burying her discarded layers inside a box isn’t enough to set her free; it isn’t until she’s able to embrace her detritus like a cherished child that she finally achieves a measure of relief. .
Shedding Skin is a haunting piece of performance art that leaves Leir exposed in every aspect. Her choreography, which resembles a blend of between tai chi martial arts movements with contemporary dance, devastatingly demonstrates the strength and fragility of the human body.
It’s impossible not to feel sympathetic stress as she struggles to find her balance and her breath, and harder still to turn away when she pauses her contortions to confront the audience with a laser-like gaze.
A wordless Zen koan of a show, Shedding Skin silently asks the question, “How can we leave our past behind without abandoning our essential self?,” making it a must-see for lovers of experimental abstract movement who aren’t afraid of non-erotic nudity.
Shedding Skin
Blue Venue, Lowndes Shakespeare Center
45 minutes; 18 & up
$15
Get tickets
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This article appears in May 14-20, 2025.