When it comes to women, there are two things American culture doesn’t look so kindly on: age and weight. Tahni Holt’s newest show revels in both.

By the time the audience walks into the theater, the performance has already begun. A heap of dancers writhe across the floor in an undulating mass of brightly patterned skirts, splayed hair, and little flashes of gold lame, like some thrift store reenactment of a Gustav Klimt painting.

A tone slowly builds, and the six dancers eventually break into pairs, rolling, lifting and collapsing into each other.

“A lot of this work features women's bodies on the ground, experiencing or reveling in the weight of their bodies, the heaviness of their bodies, which is something we culturally cannot fathom or talk about,” says Reed College theater professor Kate Bredeson, who worked with Holt as a dramaturge, providing research and a second set of eyes and opinions. “It moves me regularly to tears because I watch these six women on the ground, and it's not about victimization at all, it's actually this incredible power, but it's mixed with a fatigue.”

Power and fatigue, weight and weightlessness, youth and age — these are just a few of the themes that Holt plays with in “Sensation/Disorientation,” running Jan. 18–22 at Reed College’s Diver Studio Theatre as part of White Bird’s Uncaged Series.