Dancer looks for inner glitter in ‘Magic Girl’ and captures the sparkle

Emily Michaels King has spent years fusing movement, theater and storytelling into fearless solo works that dig deep into memory and transformation. With her remount of “Magic Girl,” she revisits the show that started it all.

In the solo performance, Michaels King searches for her inner glitter, to reclaim the sparkle dimmed by childhood trauma. Vacillating between quiet intensity and bursts of bright light and sound, she defiantly captures the joys and desires of her younger self.

“Society and culture reduce women, and make us small and forget ourselves,” Michaels said in a phone interview prior to Friday’s opening performance at Red Eye Theater in Minneapolis. “I venture to get myself back,” she said.

Trained in dance, Michaels King later added theater and other art forms to her interdisciplinary repertoire.

“Once I started making my solo shows, there was this natural coming together of all of these different skills and artistic mediums that had been in my tool belt through time,” she said.

Michaels King mines her experiences with a fearless approach to exploring personal history and present anxieties.

“There’s a lot of responsibility in making personal art in general, let alone telling the story of one’s trauma onstage,” she said. “I’m always asking myself the question: Is this personal, or is this private? The personal stuff is the vulnerable things I’m willing to share with an audience, and the private is what is just for me, and my innermost circle.”

She had long wanted to remount the production and realized this year it was time. She won a McKnight Fellowship in choreography in May and turned 40 over the summer. She also was riding high from last year’s performance, “Star Keeper.”

Delivering a brutal look at childhood trauma through the lens of nostalgia, “Star Keeper” led audiences through a harrowing yet artfully rendered reckoning with sexual violence. Set against a world of bright colors, stuffed animals, and ’80s pop culture, the piece peeled away layers of innocence to reveal deep pain and resilience.

After that intense reckoning, Michaels King is re-envisioning “Magic Girl” as a prequel that made “Star Keeper” possible.

“I realized that I had an opportunity to artfully tie them together,” she said.

Where “Star Keeper” directly addressed sexual abuse, “Magic Girl” alludes to it obliquely — in fleeting asides or a monologue quoting instructions on how to groom a horse.

For the new production of “Magic Girl,” armed with handheld lights and a microphone, Michaels King takes a meta-theatrical approach, speaking casually to the audience about staging details. She’s not only telling the story of making peace with her inner child but also at times commenting on how she’s telling the story.

“Magic Girl” is quite minimalist. Without a set, Michaels King’s text and movement interact with Karin Olson’s stark lighting, which erupts in one moment and drops to near-blackness the next. At times the lights feel like surveillance, catching her in the act like a thief searching where she shouldn’t.

Occasionally, rainbow-colored lights burst through, evoking a young person’s wonder and imagination.

Michaels King’s sound design also informs the storytelling. From the sound of buzzing insects to a rather frightening deep breathing sound — all in contrast to late 20th-century pop music and the soundtrack to “Oklahoma!” — the score creates a sense of jumping through time and memory.

The range of tones in “Magic Girl” is intentional.

When Michaels King created “Magic Girl,” she thought deeply about how she wanted it to affect the audience.

“I want people to walk away washed in star shine,” she said. “For it to be almost like a lightning bolt, if they need it.”

When: 7:30 p.m. Mon., Thu., Fri. & Sat.

Where: Red Eye Theater, 2213 Snelling Av., Mpls.