NOW-ID's Exodus

For its fourth show, NOW-ID presented Exodus, a multi-collaborative performance, to Salt Lake audiences July 27-29. While the company has previously opted for less conventional spaces—the Masonic Temple and Saltair are two examples—Exodus was presented at the University of Utah’s Marriott Center for Dance, and aimed to focus on the human need to migrate.

NOW-ID, which was co-founded by Charlotte Boye-Christensen and Nathan Webster, seeks to collaborate with a range of artists from various fields, and Exodus incorporated instrumental music and operatic singing. In a similar vein, as a reviewer I was interested in how non-dancers, or those not steeped in the dance community, would respond to the piece as a whole, so I watched and discussed the piece with two guests, one a book publisher in New York specializing in genre fiction and another who is a local special education consultant.

The curtain is drawn to reveal two dancers—Tara McArthur and Adrian Fry—who are facing each other going through an abstracted version of a departure/arrival greeting.  Behind them stand two parallel facing chain-linked fences (designed by Nathan Webster and Gary Vlasic). Opera singers Nana Bugge Rasmussen and Jakob Bloch stand trapped between the fences, voices piercing the space, providing the arresting image of restricted potential (or at least mobility), due to circumstance.

Text is spoken by Rasmussen and Bloch as they traverse the space, interacting with the three dancers (McArthur and Fry now joined by Katherine Lawrence) and speaking on a range of subjects from home, religion, and what constitutes a good life.  Visually the space is saturated with set, sound and movement, but all aspects in this section pull and push in a way that is alive with possibility. In general, Rasmussen and Bloch, although not trained dancers, have several movement sections (directed by Rolf Heim) that add to the human struggle that is often conjured when speaking of mass migration.  They push each other, cradle each other, and even enact a tug-a-war with a microphone cord.  Their movements are unrefined yet essential to propelling the issue at stake.

With Fry, Lawrence performs a duet that slices and tilts, her body placed in precarious positions through which she somehow maintains balance. The movement is angular and driving, defined and relentless.

In another section McArthur and Lawrence are seated, constrained between the two fences, moving through a series of gestures and choreographed collapses in strict unison.  While they are two dancers coming from different sects of the dance world (Lawrence from ballet and McArthur from modern) they keep pace with one another, and have found commonalty in clean, propelled movement.  With its innovative choreography and adept dancers, this section is both satisfying and striking, two bodies cooly moving in an enclosed environment.       

There are challenges when taking on a theme as ambitious as human migration. My guest who works in publishing noted a discrepancy between her notions of all that surrounds an exodus and the choreographic material: while the other aspects of the show (design, music, etc.) supported a sense of longing, entrapment and hope, the actual choreography portrayed a more aggressive, and at times even a clockwork sort of experience. The third among us in the audience was more willing to seek meaning and metaphor in the rigid and quick-paced choreography, opting to read it as a comment on the treatment of newcomers, particularly refugees, or how they may feel traveling in less than ideal circumstances.  I fell somewhere in the middle, acknowledging the discrepancy between the pace of the choreography and the baggage that I bring to the theme, while considering that within any theme, including an exodus, there exists a diverse range of experiences and resources. The choreography did not provide an emotional context, but it did contribute to the visual landscape.  

While none among us agreed completely on these points, we all found consensus on the success of the ending; McArthur lies, in a pool of light, weighted and surrendered, crushed or maybe refined, on the outside of the fence.

Exodus just completed a tour to Denmark, where they performed at the Copenhagen Opera Festival. 

Erica Womack regularly contributes to loveDANCEmore. She presents her own choreography throughout Utah and is an adjunct faculty member at SLCC.

This review, and most reviews on loveDANCEmore, is co-published by 15 BYTES. 

NOWHERE at Libby Gardner Concert Hall

Before collaborative was compelling marketing it was embedded in the making of concert dance. In the ’30s Martha Graham worked with Isamu Noguchi on Frontier and he went on to design the seat for Appalachian Spring. Merce Cunningham, who performed as “the Revivalist” in that work, went on to have collaborations from Andy Warhol’s pillows in RainForest to scores by Sigur Ros and Radiohead for Split Sides. More traditionally, classical ballet drops were hand-painted and music was carefully designed to house its movements. In these unspoken veins NOW-ID stakes its claim.

It’s true that Artistic Director Charlotte Boye-Christensen’s serious and sharp aesthetic is reminiscent of Graham’s more narrative work and her presentation of Jesper Egelund‘s songs is as magnificent as any ballet orchestra. But NOWHERE also identifies a divergent nature to contemporary collaborations; in the program you won’t only find thanks to cultural partners but logos for hair salons and magazine marketing agreements. In this shift the group finds success, mobilizing outward from audiences attending dance mostly because they are themselves dancers. The resulting evening is met with enthusiasm and projects a think-tank sensibility if a more slick veneer.

NOWHERE begins with Jesper Egelund and Laura Cutler seated symmetrically atop the concert hall frame and highlighting a human-sized hamster wheel. Their music opens space for a duet between Tara McArthur and Brian Nelson. From the moment McArthur enters, choreographic ideas of freedom through restraint are perfectly clear. Her performance throughout provides a haunting meditation on how we fast we might arrive in a moment only to vanish as quickly.

NOWHERE continues shuffling duets and solos alongside brief video from Adam Bateman’s walk home on the Mormon Trail. Bateman also joins the moving action as “The Walker” formally partnering an en pointe with Katherine Lawrence across the stage and relieving expectations by running on the wheel near the end of the work. With six exterior silver seats, the audience can guess just how many mathematical possibilities there might be between the performers which allows our predictions to dissipate, finding enjoyment in watching the action unfold.

Some duets have topical tension about how we arrive and navigate elsewhere. In others a stylistic tension develops between varied performance modalities. Katherine Lawrence is fiercely capable of technical command but some degree of vulnerability seems choreographed out of her reach — an opening chest, a fluid fall, or other liberated idioms. Perhaps this is engrained into the very idea of difference, something inherent to an exploration of place. Yet it’s likely that the company model of periodic convergence is related. With half of the performers arriving a handful of weeks prior to NOWHERE, a lack of time finds its way to the surface. There is certainly magic in a serendipitous moment: the muscle memories of McArthur and TJ Spaur inside crisp partnering, the knowing of Adam’s walking body, the space temporarily losing NOW’s signature blue light in favor of floods of red. But there is enough possibility resonant that further sifting of the material seems not only warranted but desirable.

Ashley Anderson directs loveDANCEmore programs as part of her 501c3 ashley anderson dances. She shares her writing here on 15 BYTES where she is the dance editor. In the spirit of full disclosure she is friends with Tara McArthur and is extremely jealous of Katherine Lawrence’s badass post-partum performance.

Dylan Dances & UMOCA

Below is a two-for-one review of a couple of the many dance performances this past weekend in Salt Lake City. The works discussed below share having been produced outside of theater spaces. First, Emma Wilson tackles Two Boots’Dylan Dances. Below, Breeanne Saxton discusses NOW-ID at the UMOCA.

Dylan Dances… in an alleyway, donning denim, naturally

Katherine Adler and Samantha Matsukawa’s artistic collaboration, Two Boots, presented this late-night show, Dylan Dances, for which Bob Dylan’s music scored most of the show. Upon entering the dimly-lit alleyway where the performance was held, I felt the unexpected buzz of human bustle and finally found the warmly lit alcove next to a high-rise parking lot where the dancing was to be held. I was asked for my ID and a donation by Amy Freitas of Porridge for Goldilocks, and was then nudged further into the alcove, handed a plastic cup of beer, and encouraged to mingle amongst hanging lights and happy people. Matsukawa and Adler know how to create a serene environment; I was ready to metaphorically train hop with them anywhere. These two blooming choreographers describe their work and goals on their facebook page in a whimsical yet succinct way that mirrors their choreographic style. Here’s their statement:

With clean hands and dirty paws we are human beings doing human things, modern day troubadours who aim to connect the dots and trace the red strings between us all, transcending time and place. We tell stories of familiar voices in an unforgiving age under the guise of dance and movement. Preserving verses and twisting tales, we invite our audience to be open to enlightenment or confusion, fact and fiction, and always empathy. We act as pied pipers opening interpretation to short truths.

Adler and Matsukawa, both University of Utah graduates with BFAs in Modern Dance, worked primarily with people who are affiliated with that program, so I was curious about attendance at the show. Would it be a typical performance with the usual audience of dance-minded people? No. There were many “family members” of the University modern dance department, but the show’s prime placement within Gallery Stroll, in an alleyway near up-and-coming venue Diabolical Records— and Two Boots’ collaboration with local musicians— made the show accessible and intriguing for passersby and other people who wouldn’t normally go to a dance performance.

There were moments when the action was lost amongst the equally alluring sounds of bumping dance music across the alleyway and a band jamming at Diabolical Records. Some audience members standing behind me drifted away during a duet between Adler and Matsukawa. The number necessitated a certain kind of voyeurism on the audience’s part that I think they just couldn’t relate to. One section in the duet involved repetitious solos juxtaposed against each other. These simultaneous solos took the pair from upstage to downstage in a tidal way that was mesmerizing, but perhaps alienating for some. Matsukawa had another, equally mesmerizing solo that contained many angular positions interrupted with spirals and precarious balances that she weaved through effortlessly. It also perhaps lost attention because of downcast eyes and an introspective nature.   

Matsukawa and Adler were loyal to their artistic integrity, prompting me to ponder the issue of how to make dance more accessible for non-dancers. One way is to perform with complete conviction— here, most of the time, everyone did. An extremely dynamic duet between Sterling Anderson and Natalie Border involved satisfying eye contact with one another and with the audience. There was also a section in which all of the denim clad dancers and musicians stripped down to their underwear and frantically traded denim variations, provoking thoughts about identity and individuality. We’re all different, but really the same, and everyone looks good in denim, dancing to Dylan.

Another moment: Eliza Tappan coached Molly Heller to shotgun a Pabst while straddling the newly opened box of beer. Then the rest of the beer was distributed to the audience. A brief intermission followed allowing for general conviviality. The show ended not with another recorded Bob Dylan song, but with the three musicians playing “Wagon Wheel” while the dancers executed a phrase in a circle around them. At first, the song choice seemed like a non-sequitur because I had only heard it sung by contemporary musicians, but I later discovered that Dylan was actually the first to sketch out the song, though he never officially released it. The choice to circle the musicians felt much too sentimental, but I was won over by the memory of all that came before that scene and the quintessentially folksy nature of the song.

Many dance artists and performers feel entitled to the audience’s attention because they know how much work they put into their performance. The audience does not always know this. They can mentally or physically check out at any time unless they are engaged in some way. I do not know exactly how many audience members checked out of this performance, but I do know that there was quite a crowd of non-dancers after the show, excited to commend and discuss what they had just witnessed. In that respect, the first evening with Two Boots was a success. Adler and Matsukawa managed to produce a performance in an alternative space, create a unique treatise on the romanticism and adventure found in many Bob Dylan songs, and attract a diverse audience. Dylan Dances had an unmistakable and multi-faceted personality whether anyone liked it or not. Two Boots is a collaboration worth watching.

Charlotte Boye-Christensen’s NOW-ID at UMOCA

The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art’s current exhibit, Bikuben, features contemporary Danish artwork that explores a diverse variety of themes. It was a real pleasure to meander through the exhibit. The work was surprisingly interactive. One piece was a large book with a progression of very simple and minimalist prints that evolved as I turned the pages. I also climbed up a small white tunnel barely big enough for one, which led me to a soft place when one could lie down and peer up through a small square cut out.

In the same gallery, Charlotte Boye-Christensen presented a duet for dancers Jo Blake and Kate Crews Linsley. Christensen commissioned an Icelandic composer and opera singers from her hometown, Copenhagen. The piece took place in front of a large wall of fastidiously placed pictures of craters. The downstage-right corner was filled with white shapes that reminded me of hollowed out tree trunks. The space created by the visual artists was cavernous and inorganic, and the performers brought it little sense of the organic. They entered with rigid spines, their chests taking shallow breaths as they slowly approached one another head first. A contemporary pas de deux evolved with as little life as the photographs in the background. Crews Linsley projected her performance far beyond the audience, who were in fact in very close proximity. In other words, Crews Linsley lacked the subtle performance awareness necessary to engage a more intimate space. The choreographic relationship to this captivating space was unclear, as was the performers’ relation to each other.

Having viewed much of Boye-Christensen’s work with Ririe-Woodbury before, this duet felt so familiar that I quickly lost interest. The pas de deux was followed by solos for each of the two dancers. Blake’s solo was the highlight choreographically and performatively. His limbs flew with a forceful momentum that was nearly out of his control, but would always arrive in a place of precision and accuracy. Blake allowed himself to have a subtlety that invited the audience as well as impressing us with virtuosity and athleticism.

Emma Wilson serves as the loveDANCEmore intern and performs and choreographs regularly, having shown work several times at Mudson and at other venues in SLC. Breeanne Saxton is a dance major at the University of Utah.

Iridescence at the Rose

As much as I ever have been, I was wowed by the six dancers who currently comprise Ririe Woodbury during the opening night of Iridescence (running through Saturday at the Rose). That’s saying something, given that I’ve been watching this group on and off since I was a little kid. Throughout, I found myself thinking a lot about how the company has shifted over the years and what has remained the same.

Iridescence opened with "Duet" by Bill T. Jones. It’s clearly a dance made not by the Tony award-winner we’re used to seeing on PBS, but a younger man, with different questions on his mind. Jones here is not dealing with anything overtly political as in much of his other work. At first the exploration seems very formal, the space is cut by masking tape that divides the floor into a grid. Jo Blake moves with a clear coolness I’ve never seem him employ. He’s isolating different body parts. But not with the fake, blank sense of “neutrality” some of us might associate with (a parody of) postmodern dance. Instead there’s a true sense of play, like he’s trying all the ways he knows to move each piece and as if for the first time. Tara McArthur walks in on the middle of all of this with a casualness that seems at once to complicate and explain everything Jo has done. There is a kind of accord with what at first glance might seem an arbitrary score. It set to “folk” songs from Madagascar, Iran and the Ivory Coast. This is coexistence, but not in the Cage/Cunningham sense. There’s an awareness of the otherness in this music within an American Modern Dance setting. In general, there’s a sense of felt space, real and metaphorical. There’s play between the steps and subtle humor as this man and woman feel each other while the choreography repeats itself, seeming to be rewritten on the spot to be more clever with each try. (Brad Beakes and Bashaun Williams will dance Duet on Friday. Elizabeth Kelly-Wilberg and Alex Bradshaw dance it Saturday.)

 "Duet" was unique within the evening in that it showcased individuality in the performers. All of the dances that followed (with the exception of one) included the entire company. "West" and "Those in the Desert" by Artistic Director Charlotte Boye-Christensen, sought to evoke places: the American West and the Middle East respectively. Both works featured her trademark use of balletic lines breaking and remaking themselves in rapid succession, pulling the dancers through long limbed partnering that seems directed by some unseen masochistic order. "Those in the Desert" was set to instrumental music by Ibrahim Maalouf which allowed the formalities and rigor of the choreography to dominate, albeit flavored with Arabic harmonies. In "West" however, these taut machinations were performed to (among others) Johnny Cash, Tom Waits and Cat Power. The choreography re-postured itself slightly against the backdrop of each new song, relating to the emotional bravura of Power and Cash and the fast paced word-play in Waits. Sadly for me, this train never really slowed down enough in any of these places for me to see where we were going. What I really wanted was to stop off to look around at the landscape.

"It’s Gonna Get Loud," by Karole Armitage, was ironically one of the quieter pieces of the evening, both in actual volume and in scope. It was similar to "West" in pace, but in a straight-forward, playful way. This dance, set to a triple electric guitar score by seventies composer Rhys Chatham, was trying to be fun and sexy, but it didn’t try too hard, and I think that’s why it succeeded to the extent it did. I was reminded of popular NY choreographers of the nineties and early eighties like Doug Varone and David Dorfman, men who move big across the floor and enjoy themselves immensely. The company enjoyed themselves too and didn’t take it too seriously.

Perhaps the most ambitious piece of the evening was by Keith Johnson, a Californian with strong Utah ties. "Secret Dark World" was full of dance-theatre tropes looking for a home. Throughout, there was an expectation set up that we would view violence. Muted aggression was performed, but never explained or developed. The tone of the work seemed to want to be abrasive and European in the way we might like to imagine European dance as being cutting-edge, but it wasn’t. Deep down it was a very American piece and even a pretty Western piece, more so than Boye-Christensen’s "West." Men and women dance together in couples and then in their respective groups of three. There are chairs in which everyone sits and then slumps as though shot by imaginary bullets. Some of these images seem to find themselves and others don’t. I didn’t feel any catharsis with what I think might have been the central images of the piece. At times this really bothered me. Why was Bashaun Williams crawling, then walking, at the behest of a taunting voice that spoke to him like a dog? And why did the same crawl-walk get re-enacted by Brad Beakes, just one more time, while wearing a dog collar held by Tara McArthur. At other times I didn’t care about the why, though I still wondered. Why did Elizabeth Kelly-Wilberg do that gorgeous, precarious solo while the chairs closed in on her? Perhaps it was just a beautiful goodbye, she’s leaving the company after this season and will certainly be missed.

Sam Hanson choreographs and makes dance film in SLC. You can see his newest project on dancesmadetoorder.com

RW's Prism

When watching an evening of an artist’s shorter pieces, ranging from works in progress to older projects, it is hard to locate a place to begin writing. There is, of course, the desire to go piece by piece and offer the moments that seemed most filled with wonder (Tara McArthur hovering beneath a spiraling fan, the company being seen through and reflected upon layers of mirrors and Betsy Willberg finding new sensitivity in an older duet with Jo Blake) as well as the moments that leave you curious or skeptical. But that approach is hard to get to when considering the evening at large and the ways in which the concert, as a whole, is both wonderful and curious.

It is clear that as a choreographer Charlotte has worked on many projects since arriving in Salt Lake City and with each iteration she makes active decisions through even the longest project. Push (from earlier this year) seemed significantly edited and the use of mirrors in Touching Fire (2010) became more clear with time. It is nice, in this way, to watch and appreciate that she is rigorous in her practice and will continue to offer choreography that becomes more and more fully realized.

But as I watch the evening at large I notice some troubling aspects alongside these nice moments — similar costuming and musical selection throughout, music at precisely the same volume for that matter, and repetitive structures that ask the audience to watch the same lifts, falls and ultimate conclusions (with Jo balancing toward the sky in more than one work). In isolation from one another those lifts are alright and Jo balancing toward the sky is even sublime. But in repetition these moments have a tendency to be redundant and lessen the impact of those counterparts which do change from piece to piece (whether architectural elements or the projection of a sad, sweaty, standup comic).

In some cases it is more than the act of repetition that leaves me curious. The musical scores for example are consistently out-danced by the company (who are a strong unit and individually fierce as hell). Their movements are doubly strong as the Black Angels notes and their easy duets softer than the songs of Sigur Ros. Add to this that every BFA candidate has used these artists at every ACDFA since Merce checked them out at the age of ninety and I am left straining to find the dance within the context that they are massively exceeding.

Now, this isn’t to say I’m in the business of re-choreographing dances. I don’t know if there is an alternative to these choices, or if there is, what it would be. However, as a viewer I know the evening becomes cloudy as a result. And I desire for the clouds to part so I can continue watching.

I see some glimpses of a more evolving aesthetic with the newest work-in-progress, West, which the company worked on this year in Arizona. In these vignettes not only does the music seem more related to the context of the dancing but the group really finds their new relationships. Specifically, Bashaun Williams doesn’t appear to be dancing someone else’s part but his own. The material seems fresh and at the end the company watches one another, really watches, the same way I do. It reminds me that the act of watching, as an audience, is nearly as vulnerable as the act of dancing and being seen.

Ashley Anderson runs loveDANCEmore through her 501c3, ashley anderson dances. You can read her full bio on ashleyandersondances.com