tEEth's Home Made

Last night, Portland’s tEEth, a self-styled contemporary dance and performance art company lead by Angelle Hebert & Phillip Kraft, brought “Home Made”, to the Rose Wagner. The engagement (presented by Dance Theatre Coaltion) continues today and Saturday.

“Home Made” was an hour long love-dance from hell, which began rather innocuously. A naked man and woman tousled with a camera under a silver silk sheet that blanketed them and the rest of the stage. The scrim flickered and what the camera saw was projected on to the back wall. The audience was taken for a ride —mostly sweet and a little suggestive — up and down legs, arms, backs, and buttocks. This live video play, was scored by mostly sung live accompaniment from another male-female (Luke Matter and Cali Ricks) pair standing stage left.

After returning to the opening shot, where the two dancers stared into the lens as the crowns of their heads connected, the camera flickered off. Some tricks of light and fabric comprised a transition, where the dancers dressed and made shadows as they stood up one-by-one under the semi-opaque drape. The blanket was removed and they were revealed, slowly turning in a tight embrace. We were no more than ten or fifteen minutes in, and several drastic shifts in tone had already occurred —from the playfulness of a couple and a camera in bed, to the backlit Las Vegas formality of Nikolais or Pilobolus — and now they were unmasked finally as real people, and sent into a kind of wooden, self-destructive expression of heterosexuality that everyone who watches much dance is pretty familiar with. I was impressed that they had taken the audience through so many habituated ways of seeing dance in such a short time. It kept us in suspense about who these people were, but it also kept me interested.

Then, abuse. Angry, brittle partnering, with lots of grabbing and dragging of mouths and jaws ensued. They took off their clothes and continued with the same. There were microphones to be wailed into, to be smashed into bodies, and to be manipulated by an unseen sound mixer. The dancing developed abusively and formally; the man (Noel Plemmons) got tangled up in cords and the woman (Keely McIntyre) did a kind of broken doll grande allegro around him. At one point the manipulated sounds from the other couple, the musicians, broke the collective focus on the dance, as they seemed to kiss, microphones both ostensibly in mouth.

There was much more sound and fury that I could try to recall. At some point they ended up putting their clothes back on and standing in a pool of square light to suggest a posed photograph of a couple. I kept wondering what I had missed. Yes, relationships between men and women can go very bad. I already knew that. But I wanted to get to know this couple particularly, and I never got to. The choreography was more concerned with some other agenda I never really felt invited to. I heard the unpleasant noises and saw that the music and the dance had been integrated to some effect. I saw, that almost as though it was an obligation, breasts and penis had each been manhandled at least once by partners’ hands. All of these things seemed like goals being checked off of a list. And yet, as hard as both the very competent performers were working, I didn’t know who they were supposed to be or why this was happening. I was left to wonder why the dancers had submitted themselves to this.

Sam Hanson holds a B.U.S. from the University of Utah and choreographs/performs throughout SLC.

van(guardians) of dance history; a sort of review

Tonight RDT presented Vanguard, their 2011-2012 season opener. Part of RDT’s mission has always been to present dances by seminal choreographers that showcase important moments in dance history. Adding Scramble to the roster was an important step in that mission — particularly after Cunningham’s fairly recent death and the pending completion of his company’s final tour.

RDT has taken great pains to contextualize Cunningham’s Scramble as well as the two pieces by Yvonne Rainer (Trio A &Chair/Pillow) that the company performs. These efforts are incredibly important, especially for RDT. Their panel discussions on the choreographers as well as extensive program notes offer insight about why audiences should care about these older works and elucidate the contributions each made to dance history. From these “vanguards,” audiences and new choreographers might add to their bank of ideas: ways to work collaboratively with artists of many disciplines, new choreographic methods, notions of narrative, or use of props.

Within the context of these artists as pioneers of their time I do find that one thing was missing — the fact that both Rainer and Cunningham went on to be avant-garde well beyond these “famous” works. Cunningham  afterall was not only known for abstraction and chance procedure but also for being one of the first choreographers to use i-pods and commission popular bands like Radiohead for music well after his eligibility for the AARP. Rainer departed dance to make very well-known films and then returned to dance with works premiered as late as 2008 (http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-03-23/dance/yvonne-rainer-s-got-game-at-the-baryshnikov-arts-center-the-royal-danish-ballet-dances-the-guggenheim/).

These facts only enhance the context through which one might view the RDT concert. Audiences can then see the ways in which artists continue to break traditions even as their career advances while simultaneously considering which artists might become the next generations avant-garde.

These facts also ask curatorial questions about the ways in which the avant-garde could be presented. Is it more relevant to watch Rainer & Cunningham side by side because they shared a decade? Or is it of equal benefit to dance history to watch Rainer’s work beside her films? Or Cunningham’s work alongside Martha Graham to better demonstrate the traditions he had once performed and promised to break? Is it any more reasonable to consider the ways in which Helen Tamiris or Loie Fuller were also vanguards though their repertory may now be longer accepted in a dance canon?

At the end of the evening the dances were performed to the letter. The Cunningham work showed the technical prowess you might expect but also showed dancers really seeing one another and forming relationships on stage through even the most abstract material. Trio A went through almost all of it’s possible incarnations — a silent solo, simultaneous silent solos and raucous combinations to music, it was easy to imagine why and how the piece has been performed so many times in so many places. Chair/Pillow made evidence many techniques of the Judson Dance Theater including performing as though you were casually showing something to a friend.

After those three works RDT also moved through context into new ground.  They offered RDT dancers the opportunity to develop movement sections that were strung together through chance procedures and eventually set into a clear score despite the illusion that James Larsen (the lighting designer) would actually call cues from stage or that an i-pod in the corner could be changed at random.

The piece, called Gamut, incited various responses. The first was to know which RDT dancer had made which section, it was fascinating to guess who may have developed each part and to consider RDT performers in a way we might not always see them — as choreographers. It made me see the value in trying your hand at another choreographer’s tools and find ways to see your movement that you might not otherwise (Karinne Keithley Syers writes about this in an essay in the upcoming performance journal). Further, it made me long for the “chance” to have been more in earnest and rather than stringing the works together in a (lovely) complete way for them to truly happen in the moment without the artifice of a lit cyc or perfect phrasing. Perhaps this longing displays what a vanguard Cunningham truly was, that his tactics used elsewhere only remind us why his tactics were so good.

Ashley Anderson

Nancy Carter @ Sugar Space

This weekend at Sugar Space, Nancy Carter premiered her performance company Rumble Motion Jawbone with “Tale from the Land of Frightful Dreams,” as well as a short piece by Paul Wirth as a part of the New Blood Dance Project.

 New Blood Dance Project is a new for Salt Lake City; “non-choreographer,” Paul Wirth made a piece with professional dancers in the city and with the support of an experienced choreographer. This short piece, “At Last a Spell,” began the concert. When the lights came up, dancers dressed all in white were seated in a tight ball downstage left. They began slowly rolling out of their tight balls, up the diagonal. The piece continued, mostly on that diagonal, with the dancers first jiving by themselves to the music, then acting as forces on each other, and finished with them dancing to their own rhythms. It was great to see a work by a “non-choreographer.” It made me wonder what his process was and how it might have differed if an “experienced choreographer” since the end product was not as different as I might have expected. This is an exciting and admirable project; I hope that it continues.

Next up was “Tale from the Land of Frightful Dreams,” which was the majority of the concert. I was excited to see this new work by Nancy Carter, knowing that it combined contemporary dance with circus, acting, and butoh-like movement. Combining all of these seemingly disparate elements is no simple task and I was curious to see how the concert might come together.

“Tale from the Land of Frightful Dreams” did not disappoint. Carter beautifully and seamlessly wove together all of the elements, creating a unique and interesting world for the performance to exist in. Each character had their own unique movement signature that was completely different from every other character and yet each one seemed to fit with the whole of the performance.

    The piece began with Lumlum (Tatiana Mixco) peeking out from under the curtain—using different body parts to explore the stage space. She tentatively made her way out, becoming more and more confident. Her movement was playful, even squirrel-like, barely ever coming more than three-feet off the floor.

Next to enter was Iao (Michael Watkiss). First, just his hand and arm appeared upstage right, fluttering and slightly jerking. Then the rest of his body appeared, echoing that fluttery, jerky movement style—which soon became evident as his movement signature. Both of these dancers fully embodied the movement signatures so that there was a definite, unique and even three-dimensional impression for the audience. The same was true for Itst (Mary Oliver), Wetseek (Tanja London), and even for the Three (Cody Tahmassebipour, Lynn Bobzin, and Maryann Lang).

The Seer (Scott Maddix) was a lovely actor, but because his part was acted, it felt less embodied and not as three-dimensional as the other dancers. As an audience member, I was brought out of the “Tale” for a moment to adjust to the difference in his performance style.

Similarly, while the aerial lyra section with Chaise (Aleisha Paspuel) was beautiful to watch, this character also felt slightly less developed. There were not quite as many distinctive layers to her movement as the rest of the characters. However, the aerial work fit perfectly with the rest of the piece, which is often hard to pull off in a contemporary or even experimental dance forum.

The duet between Itst and Iao was intensely stunning. The complex relationship between the vibrating Iao and the bird-like Itst was fascinating. I found myself vacillating between feeling like the two were a perfect match for one another and feeling like Itst was manipulating Iao, forcing him to do or be something he didn’t want. I couldn’t quite grasp if she was helping or hurting him—which was what made it so interesting.

At the end of the piece, Iao is trapped in some kind of jail, and Lumlum and Wetseek are unable to free him. At that point, I was ready for something even more exciting to happen. Maybe Itst would reappear or the Seer. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I was excited. But then—it just ended. I felt let down. I wanted to know more, to see more, to experience more of this world. It didn’t feel like the piece had really resolved—but rather that it was cut off.

Overall, though, “Tale from the Land of Frightful Dreams” was a very well-choreographed and performed piece, which did “blur the limits of codified dance forms,” at once bringing together a variety of styles and forming a cohesive and intriguing whole. It will be exciting to see where this piece or other pieces created by Carter’s newly-formed performance company Rumble Motion Jawbone go from here.

Rachael holds a BFA from VCU and will finish her MFA at the U this spring. She regularly contributes to the loveDANCEmore blog and publication.

notes on the dance for camera fest @ the U

On Friday, I went to see a retrospective of the work of the main draw of the festival, screendance legend Katrina McPherson. Her work brought up a lot of interesting issues and a lively, valuable discussion ensued with the artist after the show. Eric Handman, a professor in the dance department who also makes work for stage and video, asked McPherson to elaborate on the role of repetition in her work, which was evident in the first three abstract dance shorts of the evening This is a place, Moment and Sense-8 (which offered a glimpse at a partially blind contact improv group). McPherson ruminated on the difference between repeating movements on stage and repeating the same piece of footage in a film. This got me (and the friends I was with) thinking in new ways about how the filmic idioms of montage versus the kind of reality-fracturing mis en scene Maya Deren did function and interact as screendance develops through the years.

McPherson also showed a documentary piece about a dance company in Addis Ababa founded by a British ballet teacher who taught largely homeless Ethiopians “contemporary dance”. There was a lot to discuss here too, in the lobby, and in the car on the way home. We started to dissect what we thought of the film and of the project. It seemed undeniable that he’d done a lot of good by bringing new ideas and opportunities to these kids and also that a lot what he said suffered from some Colonial attitudes toward the value of “contemporary” versus “native” dance. That said, it got us all thinking, both about issues of culture, poverty and dance and about the idea that dance could change the world for the better.

Sam Hanson holds a BUS from the U & makes dances & films about town

RawMoves: Babble review

Maybe I was the only person that didn't enjoy "The Story of Eight," RawMoves' prop-driven escapade of 2009. Then again, maybe I wasn't. But I think I had a unique reason for my dislike. 
I thought the poster for that show, which featured ropes and ladders and such, looked like the scene from a ship, I thought the title referred to pieces of eight and I assumed the show would be about pirates. Needless to say, I was mistaken and a little disappointed. I walked into this year's show with a taste of regret still on the tongue.  

Then, 

I was astounded. The first ten minutes of "Babble" fulfilled my need for textual banter and fast, classy moves. The dancing from this troupe is often fierce, but the choreography is not always this seamless and complex. I found my eye roving from one pair of cheeky fork-lovers to the next with gleams of anticipation. The text elements continued to push boundaries, striking an engaging balance between chaos and clarity. There were very impressive Russian sounding rants, a few lyrical motifs (When A Man Loves a Woman -- yes!!) and an incredible lack of gesture-driven phrases where dancers cover their mouths with their hands and sprinkle unsaid words to the ground like dust. 

The smaller ensemble dance sections were often quieter, but still enjoyable. Tyler Kunz left his paperwork behind for an evening and rattled us with a macabre solo. A notable trio engaged in a beautifully interwoven set of phrases. The larger ensemble pieces, especially the finale, fell a little flat in my opinion, though they were full of fine dancing. Perhaps too full. Arranged in cumbersome lines, the dancers seemed to tread water instead of stir the space. A fellow audience member mentioned that the dance sections seemed like the "safety net" in an otherwise daring show. 

I have always been impressed that choreographers Natosha Washington and Nicholas Cendese manage to find room in the busy SLC dance scene for their professionally produced, but small company. This year, my respect for them as choreographers has grown. Here's hoping that they keep surprising audiences for years to come. 

Kitty Sailer is a MFA candidate at the University of Utah