Olivier has always been fascinated with non-verbal language and pantomime.
Music halls and silent films contain a perfect goldmine of images for his ongoing explorations of gender identity, self-examination, and the struggle to repossess our common humanity in times of fear and discord, like those we’re living through at present.
Charlie Chaplin had a kinship for the poor, the mocked, and the dispossessed, as witnessed by the speech at the end of his movie “The Great Dictator.”
Those ideas are as strong and relevant now, but we live in a different era.
Some language (saying “man” to mean all humankind) has changed since 1940 when the film was made.
And there has been a multilevel reckoning with society’s attitudes toward women.
Chaplin’s womanizing ways would not now be unthinkingly accepted, still less taken for granted.
So perhaps we have made some progress?
But there is always more to learn…
Can we truly dissociate the man and the artist?
As flawed as we are as humans, and as we wrestle our way out of the binary establishment, how do we reconcile with this duality?

In life, we experience a series of chapters, each leaving its mark on the heart. Gustavo finds choreographic inspiration in events of his life, but only after enough time has passed for confused thoughts and emotions to settle a bit (you might say marinate). When something devastating happens, like the end of a love, our whole world is colored by it. We see nothing but the painful instant we are in. With time and distance, we realize that one door closing behind us is the opening of a door ahead. ‘Chapter Fourteen’ centers on hope, in that liminal moment, at the threshold between what is ending and what is to come.

– Notes by Victoria Farr Brown