Cold Comfort

Populating an Antarctic snowscape, penguins cavorted playfully in Karen Sherman’s Cold Comfort, by turns zoo exhibit, cabaret, and erotic dream. To portray the birds, five dancers wore ingenious hooded unitards and furry arm-warmers. Their behavior breathed convincing life into the critters—curious, often affectionate, yet mostly heedless toward one another. They tottered about, cocked their heads, flapped their winglets, and rolled over one another like little blubber-balls. Sherman, an explorer wielding a pickax, began moving at a glacial pace, as if thawing.