Efren Corado Garcia: Dust. Breath. Place

Dust. Breath. Place is Efren Corado Garcia’s story. It is one of his stories, and Garcia is one person in the story, which is also made up of many stories and many people. On its most basic terms, Dust. Breath. Place is the story of Garcia’s journey as a young child from Guatemala to the United States and a reflection on that core memory as it pertains to his current self and life here in Utah.

The cast included faces mostly familiar to me, made up Garcia’s friends and collaborators from his time dancing in Repertory Dance Theatre - Natalie Border, Sarah Donohue, Austin Hardy, Tiana Lovett, and Tyler Orcutt. Technical direction was executed by RDT’s resident technical wizard Pilar Davis, and the simple, ingenious costumes were created by Carly Schaub. The production was sponsored and produced through RDT’s Link Series and Atlas Peak. An illustration by Tim Guthrie, drawn from the final image of the dancers on stage, graced the programs. Garcia called our attention to and thanked this group, and his larger community, both before and after the performance.

Segmented into nine sections, Dust. Breath. Place followed a journey, from a beginning to a middle to an end, and on to somewhere that was a bit of all three – new opportunity, process, something to stick around. Each short section received a minimally descriptive title on the program; home, first departure, migration, second departure, scorn/internal call, third departure, home revisited, dreams, and memories. These “chapters” pinned characters to distinct, if vague, points in time, and space kept them moving forward linearly as a narrative. Certain gestures and music molded the story and its characters, especially the sounds of dancers stamping the soles of their feet into the earth, of vibrant warm voices, clicking crickets, rumbling thunder, and of sweet, complicated reunion.

Kinesthetic choices, on the other hand, frequently took direction from cycling and reformulating un-pinnable elements of memory to bind the story together and give it the complex and building sense of an identity formed and remembered. The dancers walked forward through each stage, passing through movements, sounds, and emotional landscapes, gathering and trailing all behind them.

The costumes, first appearing uniformly dark and plain, were revealed to have vibrant and richly colorful patterns printed on the inside. These were made visible by each dancer, one by one over time, as they pulled up a pant leg and turned it inside out, hooking it over their shoulder to fashion a bright cross-body sash. This simple, inventive construction by Carly Schaub was delightful and highly effective in communicating various transformative states.

Garcia offered additional insights to the audience both before and after the show – earnestly and generously giving us something while firmly asking us to listen deeper. He shouted out to his community, filled in more of the details from his personal journey underlying the show, and outlined a litany of critical contextual factors regarding its creation and existence.

Garcia described the process he undertook to produce the folk dance-informed sequences that opened the show. Because he had immigrated at such a young age, before some cultural inheritances could fully and consciously land, Garcia had to perform research (in a literal, academic sense; different than the “research” that has gained popularity with dancers recently, which often describes an introspective, experimental approach) into Guatemalan folk dance traditions in order to approximate a dance that could imagine the “Efren who would have been” if he had never left the town of his birth.

When the same patterns were reprised later on, they followed one of the most emotionally dark and kinetically tense sections of the piece. Austin Hardy walked on stage in a moment of silence towards a painfully contorted and straining Tyler Orcutt, and began to stamp out the call-and-response-like pattern from the beginning, the familiar rhythm both warming and softening Orcutt mid-contraction and gently pulling the whole group back together. Garcia told us that for this reprisal he took those initial “what-if Efren” movements, and re-adapted them to reflect the real life Efren,who lives in Utah as a Guatemalan American.

Garcia also noted his thoughts on “making an ethnic dance for people who aren’t ethnic,” making the critical distinction (too often unacknowledged) that his cast of white dancers isn’t and can’t portray him or embody his experiences. What they are doing instead, he noted, is listening and thereby meeting him at a level of understanding which enabled them to understand how to transmit the work in a way that appropriately points the viewer to its referent.

Speaking later about a moment influenced by his reunion with his mother (the two were separated when he was very small because she paved the way for the rest of her family to follow by making the trip first), Garcia described it as “a simple way to make a picture of something very complicated… concurrent duets of bitterness and tenderness.” Orcutt and Hardy would grab each other’s shoulders and spin around, throwing their weight heavily and rotating faster and faster until Orcutt’s feet flew into the air while Hardy kept spinning him tenderly, his hands around Orcutt’s neck. Tiana Lovett and Sarah Donohue weaved around them, gliding and chassé-ing into floating arabesques, their bodies open, forward, and linked side by side. These sequences were repeated throughout the section.

Moments of contradiction and juxtaposition ran throughout the piece. Garcia noted that he filtered depictions of intense struggle and danger through the sense of wonder and adventure experienced by a young child, such as he was when the events actually took place. Watching it, I could glimpse that feeling, especially when the whole group raced around the stage at top speed, jockeying for places with the biggest, widest grins each of them could muster.

In the penultimate section, Tiana Lovett danced a beautifully light and sincere solo that evoked the joy of opened horizons and newly possible aspirations. The end threaded motifs together from all the previous sections, a true re-encapsulation that looked back upon the whole. Which is as memory is: everything you’ve already done will always keep washing through you as you continue on.

The evening was a beautiful, transformative, and emotionally affecting experience, performed in the Rose Wagner’s small, black box studio theater with simple staging and just two rows of seating. It was impeccably rehearsed and polished in its presentation, which allowed the message and experience to clearly and fully stand on their own. The themes and modes of communication felt as intimate as a confidence received from a good friend, and equally as expansive, and called out a mass of other stories, questions, suggestions, and challenges, stretching from border to arbitrary border.

A simple way to paint a complicated picture. How do you un-muddy something so complex? How do you unearth a way to reach an understanding? Ask your friends about their stories, was Garcia’s advice. And then listen.

Emily Snow is a Denver native who now calls Salt Lake City home. She has most recently been seen performing with Municipal Ballet Co. and with Durian Durian, an art band that combines electronic music and postmodern dance.

Repertory Dance Theatre: Voices

Watching Repertory Dance Theatre’s Voices, a show that reiterated the company’s theme this season of “Manifest Diversity,” was a distinct pleasure. Nearly every piece was preceded by a video featuring the choreographer, or re-stager of the original choreography, providing a glimpse into their intent and process, which I found to be particularly effective and illuminating for a non-modern trained dancer such as myself. This was something I especially appreciated throughout the evening: the thoughtful, unobtrusive way in which these videos blended and drew connections through the program, which then became as much a part of the program as the dances themselves. They were like delightful appetizers followed by a sumptuous main course. The program itself was a varied menu with distinctly different flavors, some emotionally gratifying, others intellectually appealing, and all of them aesthetically pleasing.

The first piece, “Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor,” was originally choreographed by Doris Humphrey in 1938 and was “inspired by the need for love, tolerance, and nobility in a world given more and more to the denial,” according to the program notes. In the introductory video that featured Nina Watt and Jennifer Scanlon, who re-staged the piece, the audience was reminded that “Passacaglia” was originally conceived while fascism was on the rise in Europe. The significance of that historical context in today’s world was not lost.

“Passacaglia” was a lyrical piece, glorious and effulgent in the dazzling confluence of Bach’s music and Humphrey’s choreography, and transported me to a different realm. Lauren Curley and Dan Higgins led movements that found their refrain in the ensemble silhouetted in a pyramidal configuration on boxes, some seated, others standing. There was a sense of conductor and choir, song and chorus, and the struggle of dynamic leadership, as each dancer seemed to be every other dancer, an individual yet uncompromisingly part of a whole. The blue-lit background and white costumes accentuated the arabesques and turns and further underscored the uplifting nature of the piece.

RDT in “Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor” by Doris Humphrey. Photo by Sharon Kain.

Second on the program was the world premiere of “Event,” an incisive and interrogatory piece, with a distinctly different tone, choreographed by Bebe Miller. It was a joy to watch and a joy to listen to. Miller, in the introductory video, first told us that she is not a “storyteller” and that she began by observing who the dancers were together and allowing “the serendipity of interaction” to come to the fore. I found it intriguing to listen to her choreographic process. Her piece centered around the idea of an event occurring in a room of 6 people, which then gradually evolved/devolved from event into narrative, focusing more on each observer’s interpretation, feelings, and sentiments, the recall of it, and the correspondent emotions.

“Event” featured a brilliant score by Mike Vargas that highlighted a penetrating text by Ain Gordon, crisply delivered in this context by Miller. The movement was dynamic and accurately reflected Miller’s intent. Real drama was conveyed by the eight extremely strong dancers in the telling, retelling, and diverse experiences of the “event,” until the “event” became the remembered experience and no one really cared or could recall what the original “event” was. What I really loved about the piece was that I totally got it. I often struggle to understand the intent behind some modern pieces, but not here. The dancers were that effective in their spatial configurations, their energetic movements, and their convincing facial expressions (Abhinaya, as we call it in Bharatanatyam). I sincerely hope that RDT continues to collaborate with Miller.

RDT in “I give myself” by Bryn Cohn. Photo by Sharon Kain.

The next piece, “I give myself,” was choreographed by Bryn Cohn and was also a world premiere. As highlighted in her video, Cohn’s choreographic process starts with aesthetic empathy and articulation. She observed, and thus is able to spotlight for the audience, the energetic traits and mutual connections between the eight company dancers. The score, which felt unbroken but was actually three distinct sections, was composed by Michael Wall.

“I give myself” began with dark undertones; there was a relentless feeling of dread in the sometimes convulsive movements and the music reinforced this sentiment. It did gradually evolve to become a more optimistic endeavour, with the sense that the dancers withheld nothing and “gave themselves,” surrendering their vulnerabilities to interactive movements and embodying a confidence and mutual trust. The stark lighting, by Pilar, and dark costumes were effective as well, further emphasizing the sheer strength and technical prowess of each dancer.

The next piece, “Voices,” was a lovingly crafted tribute to Salt Lake City’s community of dancers, teachers, and mentors, choreographed by Nicholas Cendese with input from the performers, who were dance educators from across the Wasatch Front. The piece had a gentle, lilting feel to it, and the plethora of “voices” that informed it shone through without being discordant. It was moving to see and appreciate the generous contributions of local dance educators; our community, I have come to recognize, has one of the richest, most supportive dance cultures in the country.

Israeli choreographer Danielle Agami’s “Theatre” was the last piece on the program and was “dedicated to non-actors,” according to the program notes. Incredibly athletic in scope, the piece had the dancers fittingly attired in costumes with numbers on the back, as though they were members of a sports team. There were moments where the dancers would build up enormous momentum, bump into an invisible barrier, stop, and then recede with such control and finesse; at other moments, they seemed to engage in common exercises that one might see a team do before a match, except magnified and transformed with an inexplicable panache.

Tyler Orcutt in Danielle Agami’s “Theatre.” Photo by Sharon Kain.

The extremes to which Agami pushed the dancers of RDT, getting them to explore their limits or perhaps realize that they have none, was a powerful display of mutual enjoyment and a feat of singular stamina. Agami informed us in her video that she is interested in seeing how dancers convince her that they are engaged in her fantasy, and then uses that as a medium in creating her work. One could see RDT’s exceptional and diverse dancers rise to this challenge, and with support and encouragement, exult in exceeding any confines to create a fitting finale to the evening.

RDT is currently comprised of Jaclyn Brown, Lauren Curley, Daniel Do, Efren Corado Garcia, Dan Higgins, Elle Johansen, Tyler Orcutt, and Ursula Perry, an excellent ensemble who had us at the edge of our seats. I learned, speaking to a friend, that this was Efren Corado Garcia’s final season with the company. His note in the program thanking local employers for their flexibility in accommodating dancers’ schedules caught my eye and brought a lump to my throat: "All of you dealt with my tired body, long working days… your patience, commitment to me… helped me live a dream."

“Voices” was a banquet to be relished, and I left the theater satiated and eager for another program by Repertory Dance Theatre.

Srilatha Singh is a Bharatanatyam artiste and the director of Chitrakaavya Dance. While interested in encouraging excellence in her art form, she is also keenly compelled to explore relevance and agency through the artistic medium.

Repertory Dance Theatre: Spirit

Repertory Dance Theatre’s season opening “Spirit,” presented a company mission of “manifest diversity,” a potential play on a problematic ideology that led white Americans westward. Manifest diversity suggests that what was perhaps more inevitable than white settlement was voices of racially diverse Americans contributing to a broad national culture, including the advent of modern dance as an American form.

To engage in these ideas, “Spirit,” presented works by two historical choreographers (Michio Ito and Donald McKayle) and two working in the contemporary moment (Natosha Washington and Tiffany Rea-Fisher). In introductory videos, each choreographer addresses their work and Rea-Fisher’s comments lend themselves to this interpretation of manifest diversity as she describes modern dance as a form created by and for people, unlike ballet and other concert forms which stem from royalty, religion, or both. This reality validates the concert’s aims but also troubles its premise. Because the works presented are made by people as varied as their ideas, their own concepts are frequently at intellectual odds.

The concert opens with an array of short dances by Michio Ito, whose work is representative of so many artists whose choreography was integral to the development of modern dance, but who were left out of a singularly Western canon of dance history. In “Time and the Dancing Image,” Deborah Jowitt links Ito to choreographers like Martha Graham and states that he was known for combining Japanese sensibilities with more “contemporary formality,” an observation that is particularly resonant while watching “En Bateau (Blue Wave).” Made a decade prior to another proverbial blue wave, “Serenade” by Balanchine, I watched the quintet of RDT’s women perform subtle and evocative gestural phrases in complex spatial patterns and wondered how many other dances of this type I haven’t had the privilege of seeing on stage.  

This feeling also has consequences.

Knowing that later, Natosha Washington’s “say their names (part i),” would address police brutality, I cringed to see Ito’s “Cake Walk” included in the program. While adeptly performed by Tyler Orcutt, “Cake Walk,” draws on minstrelsy with no sense of irony (not to mention the Debussy score’s reference to the racist caricature Golliwog). The inclusion of the dance asks questions about how dance companies can best curate racially and culturally diverse programming. I suspect it’s not about the range of the material offered to audiences but instead, the material’s sufficient historical unpacking. While “Cake Walk” did not wholly detract from the more compelling moments in “say their names” it does undercut them. “say their names” had multiple and cumulative beginnings and a strong moment of assertive partnering between Ursula Perry and Megan O’Brien. The dance ends with the full cast clad in white and surrounded by snow; they gaze over their shoulders toward the audience, demanding our complicity or our action.

This complex interaction of ideologies persists into the second half of the evening. Tiffany Rea-Fisher addresses the role of female friendships and, at first, I had the same feelings of excitement and longing as I did while viewing “En Bateau”. How many dances about women have I been denied while watching heterosexual partnering? What would it be like to watch more of this absorbing musical material in which Jaclyn Brown excels? And could Elle Johansen please collapse so readily into the arms of another friend and continue her skitter backwards to the audience’s comedic delight?

At the conclusion of “her joy,” the inimitable Donald McKayle comes to the screen. While I’m (truly) delighted to hear about “Rainbow Round My Shoulder,” a seminal work about men on a chain gang, I become hung up on his verbal reminder that the woman in “Rainbow” is not really a woman at all, but instead serves as an archetype of a sweetheart, a mother and a wife. Her mythology buoys the men through their crisis without addressing her own. “Rainbow” both paves the way for Rea-Fisher’s future work and necessitates it, by framing a view that women are anchors for male experiences.

Despite this reckoning, “Rainbow,” is performed beautifully and does all of the things previous critics have lauded. As Gia Kourlas described in the New York Times during a 2016 re-staging, “The exhaustive, angular swinging movement for the men came from the idea of forced labor,” and RDT does not shirk the exhaustive portion of the responsibility. Dancing to traditional chain gang songs, the company’s men, and guest performers, are both precise and passionate. When Efren Corado Garcia carries Tyler Orcutt away at the conclusion of the dance (“another man done gone…they killed another man”) the physical line of the dancers is a spatial metaphor for the passage of time. As the chain gang exits the stage, the dance should feel dated but the concept is, regrettably, still an American present.  

See “Spirit” tonight and tomorrow at the Rose Wagner; details here.

Ashley Anderson directs loveDANCEmore programming as part of her non-profit, “ashley anderson dances.” See more on ashleyandersondances.com.

Repertory Dance Theatre: Emerge

Repertory Dance Theatre is a collection of noticeably varied talents. Its company members possess distinctive personalities that can be glimpsed regularly in all RDT productions, no matter the program or how seamlessly they may move as a group. The second year of RDT’s Emerge, a choreography showcase for the company's dancers, gave us a chance to see those individual interests continue to develop. The program presented eight works that, while formally unconnected in content and style, all benefitted from RDT’s acutely personal approach to the work. Below is a small window into each.  

Dancers in Lauren Curley's "The Sum of None." Photo by Sharon Kain.

THE SUM OF NONE

Set to a Philip Glass score, Lauren Curley’s choreography was a complex study in pattern and numerical manipulation. Six identically-clad dancers performed sweeping athletic movements that multiplied and varied as they traveled along parallel and intersecting trajectories. The movement built up from simple walking and continued at a steady pace, adhering like clockwork to the unending and obfuscating evenness of the music’s rhythm.

Tiana Lovett in Tyler Orcutt's "Blue Sun." Photo by Sharon Kain. 

BLUE SUN

A solo for the lovely and intense Tiana Lovett, “Blue Sun” by Tyler Orcutt was well-crafted and even better performed. Lovett is a clear and technical dancer, suited to the fast and rolling fluidity of Orcutt’s style, and she sold the frenetic emotional drama of his contemporary-lyrical work perfectly. Chronicling a story of coping with an unavoidable “ending of a cycle,” Lovett shook and thrashed and fell to the floor over and over in passionate protest. The piece ended in silence and with a fade-out as she continued to jerk and twitch, suggesting any measure of peaceful acceptance might be out of reach.

Lacie Scott and daughter Shae in "Jammies" by Scott and Jaclyn Brown. Photo by Sharon Kain. 

JAMMIES

Cue audible squeals and cooing from the audience - newborn Layla Brown and small, giggling cherub Shae Scott accompanied Jaclyn Brown and Lacie Scott onstage in a testament to the life of dancing mothers, and what was very likely the cutest thing ever presented on stage. Inspiration drawn from the games, rocking, bouncing, and cradling of real life to create the choreography, the two mother-daughter pairs sweetly bobbed and capered around the stage to the tune of Bob Marley’s “Be Happy.” Their hijinks were punctuated by a section for the mothers alone who danced a weaving duet, nodding to the compound layers of identity that come with motherhood.

Dan Higgins and Natalie Border in Higgins' "Denizen." Photo by Sharon Kain.

DENIZEN

Dan Higgins’ choreography for “Denizen” depicted an intense relationship between a pair of strong and violently entwined forces. Natalie Border was tremendous and compelling in her uncompromising intensity. Brooding and moody, Higgins battled her. The exact nature of their spiraling relationship remained unclear, alternating between roaring aggression and something that was not quite tenderness, but maybe the insular comfort of familiarity. She got in his way and he attacked, neither able to extricate themselves or eliminate the other.

Dancers in "Doors" by Justin Bass. Photo by Sharon Kain.

DOORS

Justin Bass has been with RDT for four years now, and recently announced this season will be his last. “Doors,” likely one of his final pieces with the company, reflected this dawning life-shift, exploring themes of change, saying goodbye, nostalgia, and keeping faith in oneself, communicated through a spoken monologue by Bass that played over soft instrumentals. Four dancers stood apart, oriented toward each of the stage’s four corners. They performed subtle movements, sometimes in unison but holding the distance between them. While each dancer was lovely and interesting to watch on their own, the choreography of the piece as a whole underwhelmed when paired with Bass’s personal, moving, and deftly crafted poem.

Ursula Perry in "I'm OK, I Am Okay...I'm Still Here." Photo by Sharon Kain.

I’M OK, I AM OKAY…I’M STILL HERE

Ursula Perry’s work is always a personal favorite and often a revelation for me; nearly every time I see her perform I learn something that feels astounding and vital. (Perhaps a hyperbolic statement, but it feels true.) Her technical skills and power are beautiful and unforced. “I’m OK…” displayed a devotedly tended and honed strength, bowing and cracking under the weight of a pain the body can’t expel. A story of treading water, of keeping the surface intact while the inside roils, trying to glimpse the thing that used to make you feel joy when the world keeps tossing salt in your eyes. Twisting and flaking into the most beautiful and fragile shapes, Perry’s solo was devastating.

Tyler Orcutt and Tiana Lovett in Efrén Corado Garcia’s “Collateral Beauty." Photo by Sharon Kain.

COLLATERAL BEAUTY

Efrén Corado Garcia’s “Collateral Beauty” was a light-hearted duet, simple and sweet, danced by Orcutt and Lovett and accompanied by Michele Medina on violin. The piece gave me the sensation of watching a ballet - something neoclassical, attuned only to music, lightness, appealing lines and a shimmering feeling. A little goes a long way with that kind of ebullient frivolity; the willful obliviousness and over-saturation of it in my own balletic background can feel exasperating, but it’s very refreshing in smaller doses. I particularly enjoyed the moment in which Orcutt won over Lovett with some jellyfish-esque grand pliés. The two flirted, they dipped, swooped, darted, and brushed softly into each other without allusion to any world beyond.

Winterdance Workshop participants in "The Color of Sand." Photo by Sharon Kain.

THE COLOR OF SAND

Following last year’s model, Emerge came at the end of RDT’s Winterdance Workshop and utilized the final piece as a showcase for the workshop’s participating dancers. This year’s workshop, unlike last year, was also an audition for the company. This seems to have drawn a larger group than previously: a good thing, but one that made for a somewhat uncomfortably tense viewing experience. The dancers did an admirable job with the crowded space and choreography that appeared overly tricky for a large group of newly-acquainted people to pull together in several days, but the “they’re-looking-at-me” tension was viscerally palpable. A more informal, workshop-dedicated showing might have been more appropriate, and still could have offered dancers a chance to both prove their abilities and partake in a rewarding performance experience.

Emily Snow lives in Salt Lake and can be seen performing with Municipal Ballet Co.  She is also a member of Durian Durian, an art band that combines indie electronica and modern dance.

Repertory Dance Theatre: Top Bill

With tap shoes, reading glasses, and a relaxed yet specific performance demeanor, William “Bill” Evans literally (and figuratively) stepped into the spotlight at the conclusion of his solo, "Three Preludes." This piece blended the sounds (which were unfortunately muffled on the marley floor) and rhythms of tap dance with the lyricism and emotional ventures of modern dance. "Three Preludes" was choreographed to honor Evans’ late mother, Lila Snape Evans, and was programmed in the middle of Repertory Dance Theatre’s Top Bill, an evening that included six works, all created by Evans, spanning 1970 to 2015.

It is fascinating to open the “modern dance time capsule”; RDT does this regularly, as they brand themselves as a living library, a breathing museum, of modern dance. This mission can be challenging for an art form that was born out of rejecting what came before and one that is often neurotically trying to rebirth itself with the new and avant garde, sometimes at the expense of baffled and unwilling audiences. Top Bill not only opened the history book but narrowed the scope to one artist, so we could see where modern dance was 47 years ago ("For Betty"), both in terms of trends and for one individual, and in contrast with the trends and interpretations of 2015 ("Crippled Up Blues"). This programing also brought up questions of timelessness: why, despite being impeccably performed, did "For Betty" show its age at 47 while "Tintal," just two years younger, existed in the elusive wrinkle in time, leaving me captivated enough to forget past, present, and future?

My opening-night performance companion was my mother, who was born and raised in a three-bedroom home in Cedar City when it truly was a small town. She lived in the three-bedroom home with her parents and nine siblings and, when it was bulldozed to the ground to make way for commercial development, the local paper wrote about how sad it was to see a place that housed memories for so many people disappear. It is now a car wash, wedged between two gas stations. My mother now lives in Orange County, California, where I was raised but, at Top Bill, she was taken back to her Utah college dance days of piling in Professor Whetten’s car and making the four-hour drive to Salt Lake City to see Bill Evans dance.  

Although, memories can be faulty…

Mother: “I think I saw Bill [Evans]’s company come through Costa Mesa recently.”

Me: “No, Mom, that was Bill T. Jones.”

However, some memories do stay; often, the ones we deeply experience in our muscles and bones.

“How many times have I crossed the floor like that?” my mother whispered to me after seeing a repeated attitude jump in "For Betty."

I myself have never done that jump across the floor. That jump hasn’t dusted off all its ballet influence, with its clear air-borne shape and punctuated musicality. It resides comfortably in a past era of modern dance: an era that precedes the blended counts of release technique or the self-interest and -indulgence of Gaga; an era that continues to resurface in RDT’s programming.

In fact, this was my third time seeing "For Betty" resurface and, similar to its previous performance, this rendition was full of joy and technical mastery. However, this performance felt especially embodied with a fullness of execution and, at times, a curiosity in approach. The difference was as subtle yet as distinct as perfecting a movement in front of the mirror versus perfecting the same movement with closed eyes. The dancers were not performing what the movement should look like but rather were experiencing each curve, swing, and jump as a dimensional body in space.

Dan Higgins and Tyler Orcutt in Evans' "Alternating Current." Photo by Sharon Kain. 

Dan Higgins and Tyler Orcutt performed "Alternating Current" (1982), a duet in which Higgins played the flame, flickering and teaming with kinetic energy, while Orcutt played the moth, flighty and dangerously drawn in. A building motif, Orcutt would run into Higgins’ embrace, unable to resist its pull and then, just as quickly, would sprint offstage, leaving Higgins to writhe in solitude. I appreciated the focus and clarity of the choreography, but also wondered what would happen if the dancers traded in their costumes that were spotted with literal flames and instead dressed as themselves, two men trying to grapple with the electric, even deadly, charge between them. Could this other version have existed in 1982? If not, it could certainly exist now.

"Tintal" was the highlight of the show; Evans drew on his studies of Bharatanatyam and West African dance while choreographing it. Not many pieces cause me to lean forward in my seat in an attempt to capture every texture and layer, or to see the dancers as otherworldly. The set, designed by Ivan Weber after the original by Kay Burrell, cut the space into background and foreground and placed the dancers in a world of pre-human organisms that slumbered and awakened with curved spines and rooted bodies. Efren Corado Garcia and Lacie Scott had an especially captivating duet, their spines undulating as if boneless bodies in unison, summoning the earth and its energy. "Tintal" ended in silence, suggesting that its world continued on indefinitely; if it did, I would be there to watch.

Next up was "Suite Benny," reimagined in 2017 from a 1987 creation and dedicated to Janet Gray (an iconic Salt Lake City dance teacher), and the program closed with "Crippled Up Blues," a premiere in 2015 for the company’s fiftieth anniversary.

"Suite Benny" evoked the era of old Hollywood films, with twirling ballroom dancing and carefully paired couples circling the stage. This nostalgia was initially lost on me, and I settled in to let the movement wash over me. Enter Ursula Perry and Lauren Curley: two magnetic leaders, two chaperones that encouraged rather than monitored, two women who decided that pairing off with a partner would not suffice. Instead, they wove in and out of the on-stage couples and performed to the audience, with animation and confidence, that they would pave their own way in their created world.

"Crippled Up Blues," well-described here at its 2015 premiere, took the program full circle, exhibiting ever-changing aesthetics and how an artist evolves over time. The beginning consisted of multi-focused vignettes, emerging as quickly as they dissolved, and a constant yet morphing emotional landscape. The piece eventually settled on what felt like a more familiar trope: dancers clapping and slapping their bodies, marching in plié. This led into the cast posing as the elderly, shaking with hunched shoulders in their chairs, their bones drying out in the desert heat. I preferred the more ambiguous and disjointed beginning world, as I am a product of my own time.

Lauren Curley (left), Justin Bass, and members of Repertory Dance Theatre in Evans' "Tintal." Photo by Sharon Kain. 

Erica Womack is a choreographer based in Salt Lake, and an adjunct faculty member at SLCC.