A mata of survival.

The Washington, D.C. modern dance soloist Nejla Y. Yatkin has long been intrigued by the legendary Mata Hari. The exotic dancer was shot for spying in World War I, although her guilt was never proven. Yatkin, whose appearance is often labeled exotic, was challenged by audience members on one of her many overseas engagements about being a secret agent like Mata Hari, possibly because she travels to so many out-of-the way locales.

Her interest in Mata Hari turned creative. The idea of a dance-theater piece was born. Yatkin set about reading all the literature--factual and fictional--on her subject and seeing the movies (the three most popular screen protagonists were Greta Garbo, Jeanne Moreau, and Sylvia Kristel). She also did research on her own. What she discovered in Mata Hari's transformations from middle class respectability to artist, entertainer, and courtesan was a quest for identity, conditioned by instincts for survival that failed her only at the very end. Mata Hari's life made Yatkin question herself so that the new (De/Re)constructing Mata Hari became a dual portrait of the two women with Yatkin playing both roles.

She uses film, lighting, cloth, costuming, music, and monologue, shaping them into a sensual unity that does not swamp its dance components. During the hour-long work, there are solos to the music of Massenet, Debussy, and Satie in the manner of Loie Fuller, Rita Sacchetto, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Grete Wiesenthal, and other early modern dancers who might have served Mata Hari as models. There's also a shrewd belly dance that alludes to both women's lives. At the end, instead of the bravado with which Mata Haft supposedly faced the firing squad, Yatkin delivers a taut solo to Bach.

It serves as a reminder of how well Yatkin (a DM "25 to Watch" last January) has performed Limon's Bach solo, Chaconne, in the past. It also caps this double portrait with dignity. "Some [people] look at history as a weight that drags narrative in a particular direction," she says. "I look at it more as navigating a ship by starlight. It grounded me, put me on a path, allowed me to go from Point A to Point B. But, at the same time, it was neither overbearing nor bossy. Perhaps its effect is best described as the bearable lightness of history."

Premiered at Washingtun's Dance Place on Nov. 5-6, (De/Re)constructing Mata Hari will be performed at Miami Beach's Colony Theatre Feb. 4; at Reston Institute for the Arts, VA, March 15; again in Washington at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage in May, and subsequently abroad, including Dresden, Germany, in Nov. 2006.