Ririe-Woodbury: Parallax

This weekend, Ririe-Woodbury’s six artists undertook the task of creating for their audience a sense of parallax; the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions.

What ‘object’ was the viewer was intended to see differently; the idea of contemporary dance, the bodies of the artists, the company’s canon? One thing this viewer saw differently was the aesthetic range of the six-member company, illuminated by the curation of three unique dances and their staging.

The evening’s works -- a restaging of Kate Weare’s Unstruck (2015), the world premiere of artistic director Daniel Charon’s Exilic Dances, and Raja Feather Kelly’s Pantheon -- required much adaptability from the dancers, which they ably delivered. The pieces were thoughtfully staged with lighting by Cliff Wallgren and Mike Faba (Unstruck), and interesting costume design by Laura Kiechle and Brooke Cohen (Unstruck). All three works were presented with careful attention to shifts in the framing of wings, scrim, and stage that affect what we notice.

The curtain rose on Unstruck with Megan McCarthy and Mary Lyn Graves facing each other, backs undulating on a dimly-lit stage. Joined shortly by Dan Mont-Eton, they wove between duets and trio, three islands floating together around the proscenium sea. Weare’s masterful movement invention and use of the performers’ strong ballet technique kept me engaged at every surprising lift, light slap, and sensual touch. It was a dance of salt water taffy, each pull stretching the trio into a new relationship. As Unstruck neared its conclusion, the three walk in perfect unison towards the wing, glimpsing the exposed wall behind each step, above their heads a box of white light. I had the sense of not only witnessing the journey of the performers but joining them in it.

Yebel Gallegos and Melissa Younker in Kate Weare's Unstruck. Photo by Stuart Ruckman.

After a short break and speech from artistic director Charon and executive director Jena Woodbury, all six performers reappeared for Charon’s Exilic Dances. The jazzy stylings and on-the-nose use of music and props felt sincere, but it was the small moments rather than the overall effect that carried the dance. When Mary Lyn Graves appeared in a spotted fur coat holding a TV Guide Bible for Yebel Gallegos’ “Boris” to pledge his U.S. allegiance, her small nod and hunched position created more of a sense of character than earlier, more lengthy solos. Gallegos’ frenzied series of fouetté turns while holding a chair to a musical listing of the original 13 British American colonies brought a round of cheers from the audience, both lightening the mood and highlighting the absurdities of the hoops newly-arrived U.S. residents may face. I’m not sure if this work will be part of the company’s season tour, but hopefully so, as with a bit more rehearsal, more delightfully nuanced moments may emerge.  

Ririe-Woodbury in Charon's Exilic Dances. Photo by Stuart Ruckman.

Intermission.

Pantheon by Raja Feather Kelly.

Kelly describes this work as a search for a framing that causes the viewer to see movement differently.

What I saw differently:

1. Dancer bodies: the performers’ eclectic tattoos that were highlighted by their white underpants, wigs, athletic socks, and tennis shoes.

2. Dancer labor: the obvious fatigue and heaviness of the dancers rounding the bend on their second show of the day, at the conclusion of the weekend-long run.

Interesting images that developed:

1. Melissa Younker laying in pile of red confetti, spotlighted, the rest of the cast surrounding with crossed feet, jumping back and forward in syncopation.

2. Dancers folded forward with legs wide, gently bouncing their hips up and down in the kind of pop culture reference that Kelly’s mentions in his program notes.

3. The de-evolution of humans slowly passing from stage left to right, movement from standing -- crawling -- squirming.

Perhaps because of the promises contained in Kelly’s extensive program notes, I longed for these images or their framing to lead me on a surprising journey or culminate in an unexpected conclusion. Instead, the work felt predictably postmodern. Images, stitched together by a recurring running motif and a very extended series of each dancer slowly putting on brightly colored silk dresses, were overlaid by text excerpts describing the sorrow of fame and names of celebrities who have overdosed or committed suicide. At the end -- death in the spotlight. Celebrity life is tough, Kelly seemed to say. You betcha.

Megan McCarthy in Kelly's Pantheon. Photo by Stuart Ruckman.

Parallax offered challenging material, thoughtfully juxtaposed aesthetics, and excellent performances from the dancers. For this viewer, the show was not an insignificant commitment. My evening lasted two hours from the moment I sat down at 7:20 p.m. with a program in hand, to when I stood back up at 9:20 p.m. In Charon’s program notes, he emphasized the company’s philosophy that “Dance is for Everybody.” And it’s true, that everybody can appreciate and engage in the thought-provoking, intellectual and durational material such as that presented here. However, at a two-hour stretch it's hardly an easy leap, even for an avid dance-goer like myself.

Liz Ivkovich is in a relationship with the loveDANCEmore performance journal (it’s complicated), works in sustainability communication and development for the U of U, and adjuncts at SLCC.

Ririe-Woodbury: Winter Season

Ririe-Woodbury recently performed its Winter Season at the Capitol Theatre, just a few blocks from the Rose Wagner (the Rose is RW’s rehearsal residence and where they most often perform). The evening included four separate works that dually complemented and contrasted one another, all curated like a well-balanced meal, including vintage and contemporary portions as well as environmental and social side dishes.

The company typically performs the work of the late choreographer Alwin Nikolais around this time of year. However, Winter Season did not include a Nikolais piece; alternately, “Physalia”, choreographed specifically for the company by Alison Chase and Moses Pendleton (who together created Pilobolus Dance Theater) in 1977, was reconstructed as this season’s playful, postmodernist dance.

The work was a delightful float through oceanic ecosystems. The Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish, also known by its scientific name Physalia physalis, and other sea organisms were all embodied with sustained, acrobatic movement by the dancers dressed in speckled, spandex bodysuits to clearly create unified shapes with one another.

Guest dancer Ching-I Chang Bigelow had a darker solo in which she was sprawled on the ground, belly down, her whole body precisely flapping and slapping like a fish out of water.  Mary Lyn Graves was separated from the group with a crouched, sticky foot solo. The piece was dated with the projection of various still images of deep ocean life that weren’t necessary, as the dancers already evoked  those images so fluidly.

“You and the Space Between” was choreographed by Miguel Azcue of the Swedish company Memory Wax. The piece began strikingly with sound, curtain, then lights, revealing Alexandra Bradshaw and Bashaun Williams center stage. They performed a mirrored duet, and were joined by the rest of the company paired off in duets, all moving one another’s body parts in a disjointed way as if they weren’t used to touching one another. Then, the dancers descended to the ground where they were captured live on camera from above and projected onto the cyclorama.

They moved through scenarios playfully, jumping from one horizontally-moving body/platform to a higher one, play-fighting, swinging from each other’s legs, and generally appearing to be in a video game. Eventually, everyone but Graves rose to standing, leaving her alone amongst the tops of heads on the video projection. This eye-level-to-bird’s-eye split was a compelling way to reveal two perspectives, literally and metaphorically, but after many minutes the comparison became belabored.

“Super WE” was created in collaboration between Tzveta Kassabova and Raja Feather Kelly in 2013, making this performance the Salt Lake City premiere of the work. On Saturday night, Yebel Gallegos and Graves took the stage. They rapidly executed phrase-work in circles, bobbing their heads while bent over, and trying to hold hands while also smiling at each other. The duet was fast and friendly with a frantic edge supported by Kelly’s original sound score: birds tweeting joined sporadically by a repeated “ha-ha-ha-ha” á la Laurie Anderson’s song “O Superman”. The dancers themselves sat down and began chanting “ha-ha-ha-ha”, effectively commandeering the soundtrack by making it themselves.

Graves and Gallegos had a litheness like that of the dance’s choreographers and their unison movement emphasized physical rituals - locomotion, holding hands, pointing, sitting in a chair – that the majority of humans do: sometimes robotically, sometimes with abandon, sometimes with gusto, always amidst personal dialogues, and creating meaning beyond the action itself.

I would like to take this opportunity to honor that this season is Bradshaw’s last performing with Ririe-Woodbury. The inclusion of many University of Utah dancers in director Daniel Charon’s “Snowmelt” prodded me to imagine a future member of the company, perhaps even one of the students on stage, and how they might fit into the current community of RW dancers. Bradshaw’s strong, elegant presence will surely be missed, though it is an exciting time for the company to continue to re-create itself.

“Snowmelt” concluded the evening starkly, but without very much explicit commentary on the subject of snowmelt itself due to global warming. The projections accompanying the piece depicted pieces of glacier falling into water, wind turbines, snow literally melting, a log on fire, the sun through orange haze, and bird’s-eye views of a freeway system. Sometimes the image would flip upside-down. The images were all very sharp and similar in compositional quality to the “natural” scenes of Utah displayed on giant screens in the new 111 Main building in downtown SLC. Both are highly produced and curated to demonstrate some kind of institutional acknowledgement of the natural world juxtaposed with the industrialized world. Charon’s piece did seem to acknowledge the interrelatedness of the two worlds, but only with the projections themselves which dominated the performance. “Snowmelt” was danced with rigor and physical acuity, but lacked moments of stillness to punctuate the movement or connect it to the projected images. I am interested in experiencing this highly kinetic piece without projections blatantly telling the story instead.

Winter Season was a cohesive yet eclectic evening of dance. We were plunged undersea, then swept up to the ceiling, pressed into reality of rhythm, and finally, confronted with a taste of our nature and nature itself.

Emma Wilson is a graduate of the University of Utah and a regular contributor to loveDANCEmore. She frequently jams with Porridge for Goldilocks and was a choreographer for Red Lake at the Salt Lake Fringe Festival this past summer.