Repertory Dance Theatre’s Sounds Familiar began in a manner that was also familiar, the director striding through the closed curtain to deliver pre-show remarks. Immediately, though, this familiarity was playfully subverted. Artistic and executive director Linda C. Smith executed a perfect act of vaudeville opposite an airborne pest, through attempts to shoo, entice, capture, and eventually menace it with a baseball bat, to Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” It was on the nose, tongue in cheek, surprising, and, yes, brief enough to be both compact and impactful. The program continued in this fashion.
A diverse dozen of local artists was called upon to choreograph short works to culturally prominent pieces of classical music. This seemingly simple premise was likely tricky to produce, involving a great deal of structure to support many discrete works, a conceptual scaffolding to hold them together, and a good deal of trust and investment in many artists to pull it off - which RDT did, and beautifully so.
Each musical selection was one deeply embedded in current culture. When called on to consider such a selection explicitly, it is often to the tune of asserting value or declaiming knowledge. Sounds Familiar is a title that perfectly encapsulates this production’s opposite approach. Video interludes presented history and context, serving as transitions while dancers and stage were reset. With the benefit of educational content, and without judgment, the audience’s tacit recognition of a classical song could become the patent processing of new, affecting interpretations. This complex pairing of familiar and unexpected must have been challenging to produce on the front end. However, it was perfectly simple and rewarding to appreciate.
Three reprising solos by Molly Heller, duets by Nicholas Cendese, Natosha Washington, and Luc Vanier, and a solo by Sharee Lane danced by Ursula Perry were instantly memorable.
Heller’s pieces effectively utilized repetition and escalation on many levels. The solos were interspersed throughout the program, grounding what was otherwise successive and fast-paced. Each solo was set to the same Bach prelude (from Cello Suite No. 1). Each dancer occupied the same space while moving through graspable patterns of repetition into escalations of phrasing that then moved beyond our ability to track. Dancers Trung “Daniel” Do, Jaclyn Brown, and Jonathan Kim each inhabited this echoed approach wholly differently. The reflection of the internal structure of the music with its repeated themes and variations, and the play on the very notion of a prelude, was motivated and moving. I could watch an infinite iteration of dancers traversing that diagonal, to that suite, under Heller’s direction and never, ever tire of it.
Nicholas Cendese’s piece for Do and Kim, set to Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” was spare in staging and totally full in aesthetic sensibility. The two duetted with gorgeous synchronicity, established some iconic movements, and then used them as landmarks of recognition for departure into fiercely individual contemporary movement. The integration of contemporary social dance wasn’t imitative or exploitative. It was seamless and completely culturally legible and authentic, in flawless contrast to the music’s deeply imprinted piano rondo. I hope I forever associate those arpeggiated alternating motifs in A minor with these two incredible performers. It was like viewing a film in which you let yourself sit back, suspend disbelief, and simply enjoy the craft, and then leave the theater suspecting that you might’ve just enjoyed a piece of incisive social criticism.
Duets by Natosha Washington and Luc Vanier were each richer in staging and setting. Washington’s featured a tableau of archetypes: a statuesque woman in an impossibly long gown, obscuring a pedestal, with a man below; a bouquet of flowers; a chalk circle; and the darkly shining instrument of pianist Ricklen Nobis. Vanier’s set was Washington’s dystopian mirror, or foil: dancers enrobed in hazmat ponchos, trashed couches and a glitching television on squeaky casters, cyclorama projections of desolate environments, and a faint tinny musical recording. Both pieces explicitly treated challenging topics. Washington’s duet brought immediate gravity to the inherent romance of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” Dancers Ursula Perry and Tyler Orcutt exhibited a mastery of contained fluidity that established the weight of connection, and their artistic maturity allowed it to arrive safely and responsibly at a depiction of intimate partner violence. Every choice, from the initial selection of the music and its live execution, to the stage dressing and perfect casting, supported the presentation of something darkly beautiful and deeply considered.
Vanier’s duet was equally human and thoughtful in its treatment of ecological disaster. It built slowly and never hurried, allowing for the changeable pacing of the video background. Lauren Curley and Dan Higgins have the incredible ability to project their awareness at each other with their attention drawn in opposite directions, past each other, or into the middle distance, which made every act of intricate partnering or the intimate brushing back of a plastic hood intensely chilling. The dramatic physical scale of the projection and the indistinct symphonic strains of Beethoven framed the human drama, creating with the set and costuming a built world evoking Ray Bradbury or Ursula K. LeGuin’s science and speculative fiction.
Ursula Perry’s solo, choreographed by Sharee Lane, was a virtuoso accomplishment. Not for a moment did the Puccini aria overshadow Perry’s movement. It done was in my favorite kind of contemporary ballet vernacular, and felt connected to the very core of its performer. It is good to be reminded that the complementary acts of reaching out and digging down haven’t been mined to nothing yet. There was an untellable richness and feeling to Perry’s performance. A marriage of the universal and the personal is itself a classical artistic aspiration, and it was wonderful to see it carried out by these experienced, capable artists.
There were some very successful ensemble pieces in the program as well. Sara Pickett and Nathan Shaw showed impressive command of formations, the former most notably in passing lines and the latter in the transmutations of unison trios. Nancy Carter’s piece was well-rehearsed and intricate, fully exploring range and levels through the modality of bungee. It was quite stylistically cohesive, such that the inclusion of different instrumentations of the same Bach fugue was a confusing choice. Elle Johansen seemed especially confident and at ease dancing tethered to an aerial rig.
Sounds Familiar achieved a sense of history, diverse voice, and community presence, all of which I am grateful to have witnessed. In so doing, it also showcased the incredible caliber of its company, which performed 15 discrete works with tireless commitment. The show was a success belonging to many, certainly not least these eight strong dancers.
Nora Price is a Milwaukee native living and working in Salt Lake City. She can be seen performing with Durian Durian, an art band that combines post-punk music and contemporary dance.