Last night was the inaugural performance of The Woods Dance Project as part of Repertory Dance Theatre’s LINK Series. The show featured three works by Nichele Woods that gave us a sense of her choreographic taste, artistic voice, and aesthetic values, each in unique and clearly defined ways.
The first work Clear… as a burnt-out match in a dark room was performed by UVU dance students and demonstrated masterful group dynamics, impressive technique, and satisfying changes in texture. The dancers watched each other with an impartial gaze for most of the piece, only really seeing each other towards the end as they returned to their staged places with warm, human qualities and facial expressions. For me, everything in this piece ended right before it was complete and left me wishing for more development of the community relationships.
Photo by Becca Webb.
The second work, Volcano, with music by Michael Wall, was my personal favorite. I got lost in the feeling of unrequited longing and savored the moments that pull was reciprocated even if it wasn’t constant. Natalie Border showed incredibly subtle but poignant emotion in her physicality and her partnering with Jon Kim was a beautiful mix of accent and intimacy. Their close attention to the music slowed down time and turned the work into a trio, with the piano as another partner in the dance. As Jon followed Natalie off stage, I found myself wanting to join them and see the other half of the piece that was surely about the unfold in the wings.
The final work, For Scylla began in the familiar fluid shifts of energy and long lines and arcs that we saw in the previous two pieces but was interrupted by quick percussive strength. As the piece evolved, a sensuous, cautious, brave, animal energy emerged from the group. I enjoyed how the dancers changed characters but still offered the same images of hero and creature, challenge and loss, individual and whole.
Nichele did a great job of introducing herself to the community with this show. Her work has been in Salt Lake for a while, but it was really nice to experience a whole evening in her voice. I learned that she likes to structure her work in vignettes and reprises, she tends toward softness in partnering, and involves the gaze in every movement. While I started to recognize her choreographic patterns by the last piece, they were all used very effectively and contributed to a sense of what Bebe Miller calls “storyness” – where none of the movement expressed specific characterization, but I could sense an underlying narrative in the impressions and interplay of the group. William Peterson’s lighting design added to the sense of theatre, creating a set out of the architecture of the light.
Photo by Becca Webb.
Following the show, my friend and I talked about everything we liked and didn’t like and eventually found ourselves in a conversation about how movement reveals the most core aspects of our humanness, how it strips away all of the frills of our societal characters and reduces us to just what we are: a human in a body. Nichele’s program note states “We are reducing to see more clearly. Lessening… to expand” and ultimately, that process worked on me last night. I would highly recommend catching this show tonight or Saturday (no show on Friday) because it might just do the same for you.
Kara Komarnitsky grew up in Salt Lake City and recently graduated with a BFA in Dance from Ohio State University with minors in Environmental Science and Business. Her work approaches the complexity of human interconnection with the planet, pulling inspiration from the natural world and environmental research. While her primary medium is dance, Kara regularly uses projections, film, sound, and interactive technology to create immersive performance experiences. Her piece Tales of the Deep (2018) recently won third place in the Midwest Climate Summit’s Climate Stories Competition and her thesis, Interconnect (2022), received an Honorable Mention at the OSU Denman Research Forum 2022. Other places her work has been presented includes the OSU Student Concert, OSU BFA Showcase, and the Ohio Dance Festival Professional Concert.