From the Chicago Tribune
October 16, 1998

Dancing with a sense of danger
by Jon Anderson
Tribune Staff Writer

(The full text of the article appears below the picture.)

When confronted with a glass ceiling, Dawn "Sam" Alden has a simple solution.

Throw somebody through it.

Not one to be held back in her chosen profession, which is stage-fight choreography, Alden has worked around a lack of roles for weapon-wielding women in local theater productions by forming her own troupe, Babes With Blades.

They also use sticks, whips and fists.

"I really want to do a fight with car clubs. That would be fun," director Alden said the other night as a dozen Babes thrashed about, rehearsing for a fundraising performance Monday at the Apollo Theater at 2540 N. Lincoln Ave.

There was, to put it mildly, danger in the air.

"I'm gonna be spittin' teeth," murmured Cara Pasierb, proclaiming what an audience might see if she didn't get better timing with her fight partner, Kerry Smith.

"Can you get a little more on stage, please? I'm worried about backswing on the front row," yelled Alden, waving back a pair of sword-wielding femmes, one of whom was getting dangerously close to amputating, without his consent, the legs of a visitor.

So far, the Babes have never "lost" an audience member, though they themselves are prone to such mishaps as turned ankles, banged knees and, in one case, a slight stabbing.

"It only left a bruise through the costume. It didn't puncture the skin," Alden quickly explained, noting that her brand of mayhem depends on "selling the strike," a theatrical illusion of hitting, reacting and sound, mostly made with non-striking hands.

"It's more like dance than acting," said Alden.

"There's something about the trust between people on stage that's really exciting. You put yourself in a bit of a dangerous situation and you communicate danger to the audience. I always feel safe, but it's a line I love to walk," added Pasierb, who had two semesters in stage fighting ("hand-to-hand and sword") while studying theater at DePaul University.

That, other Babes noted, is the real payoff of being a Babe.

Aside from adding yet another skill to their stage repertoires as actors, dancers, gymnasts and, in some cases, stunt persons, there is for many of them a rush of empowerment that comes with the ability to handle, say, a good bar brawl.

Bringing considerable joy to their work, the Babes get together for regular workouts and appear from time to time at such venues as Vaudeville Nights in the Wrigleyville area and at Footsteps, a women-centered theater in Andersonville, which is their home stage.

Funds raised Monday will go to defray costs incurred by Footsteps in sending seven of the Babes to last summer's Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a three-week gathering of off-beat acts held in Scotland.

By all accounts, the Babes were a hit in the heather, drawing a big hand for such scenes as a tribute to Jackie Chan, a Wild West saloon brawl a fight in a women's prison and a tangle between two actresses competing for a spot on "Xena: Warrior Princess."

"When I moved here from Pittsburgh in 1992," Alden said, explaining how the troupe got started, "I met women who had stage combat experience, and they all complained, 'We never get a chance to use it.' My reaction was, 'Let's stop whining and do something.'"

By day, her actors work in offices, bookstores, a framing company, a grocery chain and a computer consulting firm, many passing as mild-mannered clerks and secretaries.

"All the things they want to do to their co-workers; they get out at night," Alden said, suggesting that stylized expressions of aggression can help improve self-image.

"Women, especially, are taught to view their bodies as the enemy," Alden said. "We're never pretty enough, never skinny enough. We're always squeezing, dieting, having an adversarial relationship with our body. This [stage fighting] gave me a reason to love my physical self, to feel my body's power and skills." And so it is for others.

"Absolutely. There's a real growing interest," Alden said, when asked about this female theatrical subgenre. "Stage combat classes are now 65 percent women. And we're seeing a really wonderful swing into strong women's roles in movies and TV," she added.

"When it all clicks, it's really magical," said Pasierb, who performs in one Babe classic, a hair-pulling, knock-down, bargain-basement melee during Wedding-Dress-Sale Day.

There is another advantage, noted Pasierb, who is short and blond and cute and has always hated it when people told her she was short and blond and cute.

This summer, she found, when she swaggered along the streets of Edinburgh carrying a hefty broad sword, nobody said anything like that.