Plush Panoply at The Gateway

Plush Panoply was the second show to take place at the newly redefined Gateway this weekend, this one in the since-vacated, former Build-a-Bear store (I reviewed the other show, one by Breeanne Saxton, here).

Plush Panoply was an evening of solo works created by local female-identifying artists. Having now seen a number of performances in the space, I am familiar with the DIY, works-in-progress feel that often accompanies it --  but, while I appreciate the tongue-in-cheek attitude of its identification, can we, as a community, find a name for it that makes it easier for first-timers to find? Or at least put something on the door?

While the now-coined Abandoned Build-a-Bear has typically been used for more avant-garde, all-genre works, the team responsible for Plush Panoply managed to make the space feel settled and intentional, beyond just a reaction to the space at hand.

Upon reflection, I had a hard time finding a through-line for the show beyond the fact that it represented a roster of all female-identifying artists. All of the works still retained a “work-in-progress” feel which, while never a negative, did make the show feel more like individual, fleeting thoughts than a fleshed-out conversation. As the program mostly featured choreographers and performers associated with the University of Utah, a sense of research was present, with individual inquiries giving way to anger, humor, and turmoil.

The evening began with “The Long Fog,” created and performed by Hannah Fischer. Envelopes were geometrically arranged on the floor, shaping Fischer’s space into an even smaller square. While the audio, by Silver Mt. Zion, provided a clear development, I found the movement and intimacy created by the space to be more interesting. Paying attention to how Fischer navigated the twists and curves of her spine was more meaningful since we could hear her breath, her small sounds of effort, and see her making eye contact, intentional or not, with the audience. When she ruptured the square of envelopes, it felt like we were placed in the middle of an experience: not the initial confinement, or even the eventual ruin, of the space, but the seed of discontent.

“(an) overshare,” created and performed by Megan O’Brien, was a vignette, a thought, and I would be interested to see how it continues to grow past this performance. Beginning with spoken dialogue about searching for herself (in more poetic, enigmatic language), O’Brien quickly delved into an abstract narrative about a plane crash, then a birthday. The movement felt improvisational, with a constant groove to a Bee Gees arrangement by Matthew Morley. While it’s always a joy to watch O’Brien in her element, it’s difficult for me to remember much of the rest of the piece beyond the emotional contradiction of the text versus the humor found in the movement. I would be interested to see “(an) overshare” lean into this contradiction more.

E’lise Jumes’ “Forever Fallible” proved to be one of the most turmoil-ridden pieces of the evening. Presented as a way “to turn [herself] inside out,” the piece was fluid, yet also hard-hitting, and sincere in its approach. Jumes is an incredible performer with a ferocity that makes it impossible to take your eyes off her. Once again, the audience was dropped into the middle of an experience that didn’t necessarily feel earned at first -- but once it developed, it felt appropriate. I did notice that “Forever Fallible” was shared as an excerpt, which made me curious to see the rest of it. Jumes both glided and slithered, in and out and across the floor, in an attempt to confront the space, while always keeping her cool. The confrontation was wrought with deliberate intention; she never gave into exhaustion by letting any detail slip. She was emotional yet had perhaps come to terms with something, wearing her emotions as fact and using that as motivation instead of for reaction.

The highlight of the evening, for both myself and my performance companion, was “scheduled programming,” choreographed by Corinne Lohner and performed by Lohner, Ali Lorenz, and Bayley Smallwood. The piece featured all three dancers in floor-length, conservative dresses and utilized an improvisational score. As a series of tracks played, each one relating to heterosexual romance, the score developed, accumulating more and more absurd reactions to it from the dancers. Highlights included the juxtaposition of the conservative dresses with typical sexual poses to “That Don’t Impress Me Much”; the uncomfortable, overeager smiles and affirmative nods for the audience’s approval to “You Don’t Own Me”; (unplanned?) male audience members coming onto the stage; and the dancers throwing themselves at and away from their partners with abandon. (If the male audience members were in fact plants, kudos to them for their convincing performance.) Tracks were repeated multiple times, which, at a certain point, felt unnecessary, but “scheduled programming” managed to incorporate humor, wit, and discomfort into its score in a thoughtful and unique way.

The final piece, “Bitter,” was a choreographic collaboration between Allison Shir and Rebecca Aneloski, performed by Shir. It is always a pleasure to watch Shir perform, as she imbues every movement with angularity, tension, and intent. “Bitter” actually portrayed a softened version of herself, which I attribute to Aneloski’s influence. Featuring classic tunes by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Ernest Ranglin, the piece felt like a romantic reaction while also feeling almost removed from emotion. Each movement had significance, to the point where I was slightly exhausted by trying to catch every detail; when everything is important, how do we know what matters? To this end, the costuming, music, and record player onstage created nostalgia and helped locate significance: “Bitter” was about loss, and maybe not arriving at a healthy place in relation to that loss. Part of a larger TASTE series, I’m curious to see how it fits in.

The independent work being produced in Salt Lake City is exciting, and I appreciate The Gateway’s accessible new spaces. There is so much dance taking place outside of the company model and it’s a pleasure to see it shared, even when it lacks the large budget necessary to produce an evening-length show. Given the unfinished nature of most of Plush Panoply, I look forward to seeing how each piece might evolve. But I also just appreciate the opportunity for these artists to share their thoughts in an accessible way.

Natalie Gotter is a performer, choreographer, instructor, filmmaker, and researcher. She recently completed her MFA in Modern Dance at the University of Utah and is on faculty at Utah Valley University, Westminster College, and Salt Lake Community College.

UtahPresents: Complexions Contemporary Ballet

Complexions Contemporary Ballet, presented by UtahPresents at Kingsbury Hall, was a heart-swelling, breath-stopping show. Performing two works that drew from wildly disparate aesthetic and musical realms, the company showed both the best of what they are and an infectious triumph in something unexpected. It was a beautifully refreshing display of the possibilities of ballet and the rare magic of a successful, expansive, and passionate homage by the skilled artists of one discipline to the inspiration given long ago by the hero of another.

Complexions is a primary example of a “contemporary ballet” company, as I was first exposed to in my youth. Others who grew up dancing at a similar time might remember the same reverence for the elastic freedom that co-founders Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson helped popularize, along with others like Alonzo King. Their movement style and intentionally cultivated diversity became something of a torch for students who struggled to fit into the ballet mold (which, I’d argue, is every ballet student). When I took class from the articulately inspirational Richardson at the University of Utah the last time the company was in town, I glowed and vibrated for weeks afterward.

In the playbill, Complexions noted that their “foremost innovation is to remove boundaries, not reinforce them.” Bach 25, the first work on the program, evoked that vision with a clarity and precision that illustrated exactly why the company is renowned. The piece was steadfastly true to what one might expect: statuesque men and women in herculean form; bare whispers of flesh-toned leotards and briefs; flashing crispness and aching intensity; heart-stopping lines and tilts galore; dramatic shadow and light; choreography that teased out and magnified tiny musical subtleties; complex individual dynamics layered to create an explosively undulating, many-armed whole.

The removal of boundaries was a particular theme in Bach 25. In the piece, dancers pointedly played with classical ballet formations, steps, structures, and gestures to illustrate the subversion and expansion of each; not just using their bodies, though shaped by ballet, to inform and enhance contemporary movement divorced from ballet steps. Choreographic tools like diagonals, windowed lines, and canons were apparent, as were all the most recognizable standbys of classical ballet vocabulary – penchés, passés, bourrées, developés, extended balances, traveling lifts. While these forms were sometimes presented in their most familiar context, inserted among more contemporary structures and movements they sometimes also twisted, were reorganized and flipped, and distilled down to their essence.

Partnering was also used first to bring forth a motif and then to upend it. Couples were mostly male/female pairings, with much of the choreography a referent of classical pas de deux, but many steps typically assigned to a particular gender were fluidly passed back and forth.

When any company does “A Tribute to ____,” I am usually not into it. No matter how much of a crowd-pleaser a mashup of beloved hits may be, it is hard to get the tribute itself to stand up in comparison. But I have to admit that Complexions’ Star Dust, a tribute to David Bowie that the company premiered shortly after the artist’s death in 2016, kind of had me. It was huge and electrifying. It was full of both campy, uncontained silliness and a melodramatically heightened yet earnest pathos. My chest filled, tight with glee, and I experienced waves of nostalgia at least a couple times.

The success of Star Dust hinged on a few structural choices. First was the absolutely outlandish technical and lighting direction from the company’s resident designer Michael Korsch (his lighting in Bach 25 was also strikingly superb and functioned as a key element in that work as well). Over-the-top choices included a curtain that lifted on a 3D light show of splintered, front-facing beams and spots arranged as a giant star, for the opening number set to “Lazarus” (from the 2016 album Blackstar); rich, saturated colors; wildly sweeping lights; and a massive backdrop of gold streamers that re-appeared throughout the piece for dancers to burst in and out of. Each such effect transported us into the imagined circus of an arena concert, or even to the place where dance is arguably most at home in popular music – the music video.

This impression was only strengthened by the goofy, delightful choice to have a Bowie character dancing and strutting front and center, lip-syncing to many of the songs while the other dancers swirled around them. Several dancers rotated through this role between and during songs, delightfully hamming it (all the way) up. By leaning into conventions that regularly accompany that kind of music, Complexions was able to create the “visual imprint,” as billed in company marketing materials, needed to capture Bowie’s spirit.

And of course, the dancing itself was technically incredible, drawing a throughline with much of the same type of movement as in the Bach piece. Balletic qualities were adjusted perfectly to be given a new life and peppered with moves reminiscent of the silliest, most gleeful, late-night dance party. Some of best moments were the blinding opener, “Lazarus,” with the unequaled charisma of Brandon Gray as Bowie; Jared Brunson setting off a spiraling chorus of dancers violently swinging their arms, air-guitar style, in “Life on Mars”; and the hugely magnetic performance of Maxfield Haynes in “Space Oddity.”

Also great was the slowed down, sad-eyed presentation of “Heroes,” sung by Peter Gabriel, that featured Jillian Davis in a balletic pas de quatre as well as Brandon Gray. The heavy drama of this section ended with the cheesy melodrama of dancers in a line staring out across the front of the stage, while one dancer walked among them, falling and clutching at them - until he erupted into a twisting, flapping, chicken dance that reverberated back to the others, who in turn catapulted into spasms of delight to the tune of “Modern Love.”

The final movement of Star Dust featured Bowie’s “The Young Americans,”  actual red, white, and blue lights, and the full company, spaced out to fill the stage, writhing and shaking in what can only be described as a riotous dance party. As I watched the joy and fury in their bodies became more intense and more palpable, and just as I began to catch a feeling of hope in a “young America” myself, the curtain came down.

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.

Breanne Saxton: ACKNO wledge & accept at The Gateway

After a few years of struggling to reinvigorate community interest, The Gateway is finally finding itself, as a home for a surging independent art scene. The former outdoor mall’s empty storefronts, which have become host to the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival, provide unique performance venues for all disciplines.

ACKNO wledge & accept was one of actually two shows I attended at The Gateway this weekend (see my review of Plush Panoply). The show was billed a “multidisciplinary dance theater performance,” at the Wasatch Theatre Company locale (at first a secret location, when tickets initially went on sale). The brainchild of Breeanne Saxton, of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, ACKNO was a collaboration with Georgia Patterson, Andrew Alba, and Ava Lux that, though brief, provided a sensory, queer, and intimate experience.

My senses were immediately overwhelmed upon entering the space. Attendees were asked to read a lengthy intellectual property agreement (and were filmed while doing so), swab our cheeks, and take a (non-alcoholic) shot, creating a strong sense of intrigue. I did anticipate these elements’ incorporation into the performance in a more involved way and was disappointed to find this not to be the case; but in combination with the fog, eerily ambient music, intense lighting, and crowded space, I was satisfactorily disoriented.

Then the performance began. Billed as a dance theater performance, I anticipated ACKNO would contain some narrative. However, I actually found the most intriguing parts to be the moments during which I forgot a narrative was taking place. A sense of desperation and observation were palpable throughout. Patterson, performing the role of “ACKNO” (at times, I was interested in this character changing hosts), began with a frenetic entrance, bursting into the space and digging through a suitcase. Multiple times, the smaller venue gave rise to an immediacy of feedback, creating an intimacy that led to realism. Patterson had to chug an entire bottle of water and put eye drops in, and there was no way of faking that. This created a belief in her true embodiment of ACKNO; not just as a performer, but as an identity.

Saxton inhabited the role of the “extra-terrestrial special interest group,” beginning the show as part of the landscape, with a camera lens instead of a face. Even as her alien character appeared to de-mechanize, Saxton inhabited it with a calmness, even an antipathy, yet with much control. This was true throughout, as she also controlled the piece’s sound cues: maybe she was out of commission, yet was ultimately in charge of the entire experience.

Both Saxton and Patterson moved remarkably similarly, exhibiting a fluidity and ease when rising and falling from the floor, with reaching limbs and immense control to make such movement appear effortless. While inhabiting a similar choreographic vernacular as Saxton, Patterson’s role as human ACKNO was heightened and almost caricatured through her use of expression. As much as her body was constantly shifting, so too were her eyes, which darted, her mouth agape as her focus shifted. In contrast, Saxton’s expression was revealed completely through her movement. Even in moments of release and emotion, the manner in which she changed costumes felt methodical, if not careful and entirely rooted in her physical experience.

Most intriguing was an interview sequence between ACKNO and the extra-terrestrial. In what also felt like the queerest part of the evening, bodies were shifted (or snatched, as in body snatching) as each dancer experimented with the other’s body in a way that was both meticulous and dangerous. Each knew where the other would be and exactly how much risk to take, clearly the result of practice, yet the sequence still felt new and spontaneous. Saxton’s gaze on Patterson kept her in control, yet seemingly out of control at the same time. During moments of embrace (though “embrace” here feels trite), each seemed to inhabit the other with a sexual tension, a danger, and a desire to be, and also to control, the other. Violence toward one another was also careful; more of a testing of limits than a desire to destroy.

As ACKNO ended, it felt much too brief. The entire audience turned back toward the stage, anticipating more, as the dancers left the space. Speaking with audience members after the show, some expressed that the performance felt like a set-up, a flashback, or a vignette, but truly the beginning of something. While it’s always good to leave the audience wanting more, I left feeling unsatisfied, though in the best way possible. I hope ACKNO is the beginning of a series, or at least a longer exploration, as the show’s disorientation and authenticity truly piqued my interest.

Natalie Gotter is a performer, choreographer, instructor, filmmaker, and researcher. She recently completed her MFA in Modern Dance at the University of Utah and is on faculty at Utah Valley University, Westminster College, and Salt Lake Community College.

Park City Institute presents Parsons Dance

Presented by the Park City Institute, Parsons Dance returned to Utah to perform an energetic and exhausting program at the Eccles Center. Founded in 1985 by David Parsons and lighting designer Howell Binkley, the nine-dancer company maintains a large repertory and touring schedule. This program included four dances choreographed by Parsons between 2003 and 2018, an earlier work of his titled Caught (1982), and a new Trey McIntyre piece commissioned for the company this season.

Following one frazzled volunteer checking in a will-call line that extended out the door, a shortage of programs, and a lengthy speech from Park City Institute executive director Teri Orr thanking a plentiful circle of generous donors, the evening began with “Round My World.” The curtain rose on six dancers in blue, under a bright overhead light. Choreographed by Parsons in 2012, “Round My World” was a lyrical/contemporary-style piece that featured, as its title suggests, a lot of circles. The dancers swirled around as a group or in pairs, linking their arms and positioning their bodies with and around each other to form various circular images. The costuming was starkly gendered, an approach also reflected in the choreography and pairing of dancers, with the men in flowy, light blue pants, sans shirts, and the women in knee-length, light blue dresses.

Parsons’ “Hand Dance,” from 2003, employed a back light to illuminate five sets of hands. Glowing orange, the hands skittered about in time with a racing piano score; at their best, using the freedom of untethered, abstract shapes to create wonderful, Fantasia-esque magic, and at their worst, elbowing the audience repeatedly in the gut with some groan-worthy gimmicks. When “Hand Dance” began, I wondered if (and how) it might develop into anything further - unsurprisingly it didn’t, echoing the single-note approach of the first piece.

The new McIntyre commission, “Eight Women,” came next. It utilized a trope that now seems to have become a persistent and pervasive standard: a stage doused in warm reds and oranges, choreography that liberally borrows from social dance forms, and a musical assortment of the swelling, oxygen-gobbling voices of the iconic greats of jazz, soul, Latin, Motown, etc. I’ve seen a version of this same piece at least a half dozen times over the last few years, from both touring contemporary ballet and modern companies: the dancers swirl around, ambiguously fiery, in this case to Aretha Franklin’s “Spanish Harlem,” but the content falls short when held up against the emotive legacy of the familiar musical selections.

Following intermission were three more pieces, the first of which, “Microburst,” was perhaps my least favorite. Four dancers were costumed in black jazz pants with one leg covered in fringe. The women also wore asymmetrical, ab-baring tops that were, frankly, terrible, resembling a purchase from a discounted dancewear catalog, such as for a children’s jazz competition number, rather than a choice made by an internationally renowned company with more than three decades of experience and resources to draw from.

The dance itself was a conceptual tangle of familiar artistic and cultural appropriations. The dancers performed popping and ticking movements in a swaggering, dance battle set-up to an original score by tabla player Avirodh Sharma. Overall, the piece was not sharp, quick, or together enough to be convincing, or to stand up to the music’s complex rhythms as the dancers traded places back and forth. A trend, as identified in the first half of the program, to centralize Utah native Zoey Anderson was further solidified. Clearly at home in the (literal) spotlight, Anderson tossed her ponytail and milked the vibe of “Microburst” for all it was worth, her aggressive energy and attack edging out any chance of focusing on the other dancers.

“Caught,” the heritage solo that Parsons dancers have been performing for the last 37 years, was predictably the standout of the program, again featuring Anderson. The piece began with her moving through a series of spotlights on the floor. Then darkness descended and wild sequences of traveling jumps were illuminated at their moment of full height by a flashing strobe. The effect was such that Anderson appeared to float, impossibly, around the stage. This simple, but complete, idea and the exacting execution of its technical trickery made the conceit work perfectly. Anderson performed “Caught” with impressive force to shock and awe, as well as elicit a mid-program standing ovation from, the Park City audience.

While “Caught” may have provided an exhilarating natural ending to the evening, the final piece was an example of another overused trope - the exhausting yet aimless, jazzy ensemble send-off, airlifted out of its natural context as a background diversion or transition in a busy musical theatre number. Anderson once again wiggled and jumped from spotlight to spotlight by herself while the other dancers wiggled and jumped around her. Although her energy and presence were undeniably striking, her competition-style “cheesing” was ultimately distracting and the spotlight which pushed her to the forefront throughout the entire program forced the other (capable and lovely) dancers into the uncomfortable role of accessory, belying the mantle of Parsons Dance as an “ensemble” project.

By far, the most exhilarating aspect of the program was the sheer energy possessed by the company. From start to finish, they were exhausting to watch, as each piece they performed was packed with huge movement, constant jumping, and neatly executed but dizzying turns. All that expended energy never quite made up for what it seemed was missing from the program, but it was nonetheless incredible to fathom how the dancers were able to sustain that dynamic.

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.

RDT presents Danielle Agami

Internationally acclaimed artist Danielle Agami is a considerate host.

Agami is also the founder and artistic/executive director of Los Angeles-based dance company Ate9, in addition to being a renowned choreographer, a Batsheva Dance Company alumnus, a Gaga movement research instructor, and a masterful, incredibly expressive dancer. Each of these many roles informed Agami’s powerfully realized and embodied solo, Framed, presented by Repertory Dance Theatre in the intimate black box theater at the Rose Wagner.

Agami is in town to restage Theatre for RDT, a piece first set on the company in 2016. She is known primarily for creating innovative works and collaborations that utilize the specific strengths of the dancers of Ate9; having her in Salt Lake as the repetiteur of her own choreography and the presenter of a career-first solo is a privileged look into the wider scope of her artistry.

First a hand and an arm, then a foot. Slowly, all of Danielle Agami emerged from the stage-left drapes in silence. She moved laterally across the floor, her image hazily reflected there by the effective low lighting designed by Pilar Davis. As the silence continued, the top light was brought up to reveal the shadows of Agami’s gestures on the white floor, over which she crouched and shifted. Her movement was grounded even in its moments of frenetic repetition, such that it never sacrificed clarity for lack of control. A fluid, graceful counterpart revealed her maturity as a dancer, as she reached absolute full extension before returning purposefully inward, her limbs turning in and out completely. An introduction, performed in silence, felt like a private, vulnerable moment we were allowed to access through chance and good grace. Then the music began, with the strings coming in and Agami walking out.

Upon her re-entrance the audience was fixed with the intensity of Agami’s direct gaze for the first time, perhaps realizing how much emotion had been conveyed before without it. She walked briskly down the diagonal, bearing a tray of popcorn and snacks which she proceeded to distribute among us. The host had emerged; we were meant to, and were made to, feel the dynamic shift of being explicitly and literally catered to, along with the complex of gratitude and discomfort that the reception of such performative accommodation may entail. Agami rode out the momentum of the gesture to great comedic effect, immediately escalating its scale with a precarious stack of gift boxes and a mini fridge. She chose not to be subtle in treating the relationship between artistic and material consumption. But malice and resentment were notably absent, as though Agami is personally compelled to be generous - almost as though what we do with her gifts is our own affair. Her last offering was a camera handed to a patron seated front and center, for whom she struck a provocative pose of dramatic curves.

The camera’s flash initiated another tonal shift. Agami established a series of too-familiar “dance” poses, freezing them for the static photographic medium. She then moved through the poses again, frantically articulating and re-articulating the assuming of each before moving on to the next, taking an iterative approach within the sequential progression. Rather than the more familiar repetition of themes varied across movements, Agami’s Gaga-informed repetition was immediate, exhausting one thought to depletion before moving on to the next. Cohesion was not achieved simply by revisiting motifs but rather through creating fully motivated, fully realized ideas. The forty-minute work was a series of these complete vignettes with thoughtful transitions that constructed a singular emotional landscape.

Danielle Agami began to speak directly to us, and the introduction of her voice heightened the experience as much as her gaze had previously. She spoke of dissatisfactions with her body, with aspects of her history and lived experience. Truthfully, had my viewing companion and I not been weeping more or less consistently since the silent exposition, we would have begun to during this brief and uncontrived address. It was pointedly framed as a decision to make disclosures, with the corollary “I wanted you to know that I know…” in the interactive orchestration of give-and-take. Agami had in fact snatched back several of her props from the audience, a gift box and a can of cola or two, but would proceed to draw many more objects forth. These included a stuffed cat, a punching bag and boxing gloves, club clothes and headphones, a cheese knife, and a cocktail shaker and chocolate syrup. All of these were utilized effectively, but none more so than the “prop” partner planted in the risers, Ate9 company manager Jordan Klitzke. Agami drew him down the stairs from the top row and began to duet with his inert form. It became a partnered piece that somehow encapsulated every rewarding and disappointing aspect of interpersonal action, including violence and intimacy, as well as tension and release, to a degree I had never seen before. In the Q & A following the showing, Agami stated that the two were careful never to over-rehearse the duet, which no doubt contributed to its force.

RDT company member Ursula Perry also lent her voice to the performance, several times selecting fellow audience members to suggest to Agami as potential romantic prospects, enumerating their fabricated or cheekily veridical names and attributes. This was the rare recapitulation of a motif in the piece, and it served as an effective transition between ideas. At each suggestion, Agami would demur with a gesture. Finally, she firmly stated an imperative, “Stop; enough.” This was a definitive end to the bit, and it signalled a return to silence. The piece came to an end with a series of interspersed gestural invitations to leave, which some of the audience haltingly obliged, even as the work continued. The movement became more akin to personal research as the invitations became less obliging. Agami came to rest supine on the floor, before exiting with a nod of acknowledgement. The Q & A that followed was much like the piece itself: uncompromising honesty in the insights that Agami shared, with the sense that no choice in what was disclosed or withheld was made lightly or unconsidered. It was the last in a series of generous acts.

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.