Ririe-Woodbury: Bloom

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s Bloom featured two new works, one by artistic director Daniel Charon and one by University of Utah professor Stephen Koester, as well as a piece by Tzveta Kassabova (2010) that Ririe-Woodbury first performed in 2016. The concert was well-formatted, with Charon’s dynamic and daring work splicing two more humanistic explorations of relationship and transition. I’m not convinced the title Bloom accurately described my experience, but how does one accurately name a diverse repertory program? If the title didn’t portray what was happening on stage, it did sum up the beautiful Salt Lake City spring that is happening outside.

Kassabova choreographed “The Opposite of Killing” as an exploration of emotions pertinent to losing a close friend, and the piece has been performed by multiple casts, including by students at the University of Florida, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Middlebury College. Amy Falls did a thorough job of describing and unpacking the piece at its Utah premiere; I will add that I especially found meaning in its arc.

The beginning was an exploration of movement, absence of movement; sound, absence of sound. The dancers confidently found their places making parallel lines and right angles, clear in their mission and devoid of emotional ambiguity. As the piece unfolded, it slowed down, weighted with grief. Breeanne Saxton found herself upstage and alone, bathed in a warm spotlight, isolated, watching the movement carry on without her.

There were the more obvious moments of experiencing loss, such as soft embraces and collapsing bodies. Particularly resonant, however, was the constant shift of dancers’ costumes. As the choreography moved the dancers on and off stage, each subtly shifted what they were wearing; one who was wearing shorts came out in pants, one previously showing skin next appeared in a turtleneck. The costume changes never departed from a gray palette, but morphed enough to signal that each dancer was, in fact, changing; as if to say, “I may be similar on the outside, however, with loss, there is a shift.”

The end was the beginning, the dancers lying down in horizontal and vertical lines. What felt self-assured and expectant in the opening scene now felt unresolved and heavy. What we experienced in the middle shifted everything.

Charon’s Dance for a Liminal Space, divided into two parts, buffered either side of the intermission, and each part diverged from the other in their definitions of “liminal.” From the program notes, the first section related to a transitional or initial stage of process, while the second explored occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary. I found both parts showcased the five dancers beautifully (Brian Nelson, who joined the company in 2018, did not appear in the piece), as well as challenged notions of how to convey something both in transition and arriving from transition. That is to say, I liked it.

The first part began with the three women of the company (Megan McCarthy, Melissa Younker, and Breeanne Saxton) as clear, directional, and undulatory, their bodies bright and severe against the darkness of the stage. Then, just when I started to put my finger on the piece, text by Meredith Monk began. Phrases such as “he salted his empty plate first” and “she wears the same bow as her dog” refused to relate to what was happening on stage, and scrambled any definitive meaning. This absurdity paired with the robust physicality was oddly satisfying, and forced my mind to open and receive instead of to close and define. Undoubtedly, there will be those that find the disparity jarring, even frustrating; but when the closing image was settled and fixed, two groups having taken their places, statuesque and clear, I appreciated it even more.  

The second part of Dances for a Liminal Space was highlighted with bold and geometric lighting by Ririe-Woodbury technical director William Peterson and relentless music by Michael Gordon. Did I mention that the dancers looked fantastic? Because they did. Bloom is also the farewell concert for both Yebel Gallegos and Breeanne Saxton, two versatile dancers that will be greatly missed. They, along with the others, were in perfect form, and this section of Charon’s piece in particular showed off the company’s range and virtuosity. Bashaun Williams and Megan McCarthy travelled from one side of the stage to the other, flying, twisting, and turning, and when they leapt into the wings, I wished they would run back around and soar through the phrase again. The stakes were high in this section, the position had been chosen, and it was time for the dancers to confront the consequence with intensity and resolve.

The final piece was Koester’s “Departure - A Last Song, Perhaps a Final Dance Before a Rest.” As the program note detailed, Koester is retiring from his position at the University of Utah in the School of Dance, and perhaps from dance in general. I was his student at the U during graduate school, and thus feel a personal connection to his retirement; he has been a strong figure in the Utah dance community for decades. I have admired him as a choreographer, and found his pieces bold and impactful -- even the few that I did not enjoy would run through my mind for weeks after, as I tried to find a landing place for them (arguably the biggest compliment of all).

To that end, I found myself anticipating what his final work would be. Conceptually challenging? Movement-driven? Autobiographical? Trying not to be too melodramatic (although the piece’s title doesn’t temper this), it was as if we were all huddled around him, staring intently: “What are your parting words?!”

His parting words in “Departure” seemed to be, “Find community. Help one another. Be together.” The piece featured the entire company, clad in pedestrian clothes, with music by David Lang. There was form to it, but that form sprouted from relationships as each dancer seemingly took a turn at being supported, or at least seen, by the others. Sometimes the relationships poked, nagged, questioned, or insisted; there was little movement for movement’s sake, each vignette attaining an emotional resonance that could also immediately shift or drop.

The final image was a terse wave from Yebel Gallegos, as he and Brian Nelson retreated upstage, the lights fading.

Bloom concludes tonight, April 20, with a final performance at 7:30 p.m. at the Rose Wagner Center for the Performing Arts.

Erica Womack is a Salt Lake City-based choreographer. She coordinates loveDANCEmore’s Mudson series and contributes regularly to the blog.

Jessica Lang Dance at Eccles

Jessica Lang Dance, the Long Island City-based company of choreographer Jessica Lang, performed at the Eccles Center on Friday night*. Lang founded her company in 2011; prior to this, both new commissions and re-stagings of Lang’s work have been prolific in the rep of many ballet companies internationally, from Ballet West to Richmond Ballet to Birmingham Royal Ballet. Friday’s performance featured JLD’s own nine dancers in five selected works, all created by Lang within the last ten years.

JLD dancer Jammie Walker opened the program with “Solo Bach”, a compelling and concise solo replete with nuanced musicality and exultant gestures, as well as some very impressive tricks (a back somersault into a handstand, and a moment where Walker popped up into a contraction, with only the arch of one foot holding him up in this position). The solo’s choreographic structure mimicked that of Bach’s composition in its reprises, but Walker’s delighted performance made each repetition new again. He ended with his arms opening upward and toward the audience, inviting us in until the very end.

“Sweet Silent Thought” featured a quartet of performers and recitations (trance-like, a quality enhanced by static crackling added to the recording) of Shakespearean sonnets. At first, men danced to recitations by men, and women to those by women. Eventually, that pattern was broken; two men partnered each other, and ambient music gave way to some more traditional partnering between the two couples.

While there was nothing especially memorable about “Sweet Silent Thought”, there was a moment for me that capitalized upon the company’s strength as a whole. A couple of the dancers slid into push-up positions with incredible grace and delicacy, yet exhibited a stalwart strength in doing so: a fitting analogy for the dancers’ ability to exude both an elegant, balletic sensibility as well as a contemporary sense of attack and strength (and always finding the simplest route to the next movement, for a streamlined effect).  

One of my colleagues described Lang’s dances as painterly, and I would add to her description two qualities of JLD dancers and movement that work in tandem: elongated lines and geometric shapes derived from a classical ballet vocabulary, fleshed out by curves and sweeps, derived from a classical modern vocabulary.

“Thousand Yard Stare”, the first larger work on the program, was set to the adagio movement of a Beethoven string quartet. As inferred from its title and several markers throughout, “Thousand Yard Stare” explored themes of war (the term “thousand-yard stare” has been used, probably since World World I, to describe to the vacant gaze of a battle-weary soldier).

The full company entered the stage, clad in olive-drab trousers, with a marching, weight-shifting pattern that occasionally accelerated into a layered, stomping rhythmic sequence - very effective both in its precise execution and in the silent theater. The intricate stepping patterns were danced, like other choreography throughout the evening, as though they were incredibly simple. A strong suit of the performers, and perhaps also of Lang’s choreography, is that everything appears distilled down to the most essential movements of leg and limb.

Both the formations and variations on a theme of marching took clear inspiration from military drills, and were also the more interesting and successful invocations of the war theme throughout the dance. More literal were army crawls underneath a line of dancers in downward dog and dancers slung limply across the shoulders of others, inevitably evoking the casualties of war.

The group, in formation, took turns sinking down into grand plies in parallel first position- a difficult task, and an impressive display of physical strength and strength of will (obvious parallels can be drawn to combat here). They formed one long line lying down, nestled into each others’ bodies, spooning. Dancer Kana Kimura was spun, several times, held at the waist, so that her limbs gathered centrifugal force, flying out effortlessly from her partner’s center.

“Thousand Yard Stare” contained many individual points of interest, but also contained some less interesting or obvious, and often-repeated, references to war. I enjoyed the opening marching sequences and the return to those in the end, but it was the rest for me that meandered away from a varied exploration of the dance’s subject matter.

Maybe it is even the subject matter itself that is difficult to explore through dance. Given that both battle and dance involve physical experiences, perhaps an exploration of one with the other can only offer an experience with similar physical motifs, motifs that leave less room for interpretation; I felt some similar reservations about Shapiro and Smith’s war-evoking “Bolero”, on RDT’s Brio program in 2016.

It does feel callous to dismiss work that aims to tackle difficult subject matter, and I do not wish to say that war should not be addressed in dance (from reading the Tribune’s preview of JLD’s performance, I understand that Lang worked with veterans and their stories in conjunction with making “Thousand Yard Stare” - bridging such a connection between two often disparate communities is absolutely commendable). For this reason, I should say I am excited to see Kurt Jooss’ “The Green Table” live for the first time, when Ballet West performs it in April. Though made in 1932, “The Green Table” engages with those who call us to war in the first place, exploring themes of war, and death, without scenes of literal combat on stage.

“The Calling”, an excerpt of Lang’s larger work “Splendid Isolation II”, is frequently depicted in JLD marketing so I was thrilled to finally see it performed. Though it ended before I wished it to, the dance is a lovely vignette featuring one female dancer (Kimura on Friday night) in a long white skirt, so long that a team of people accompany her onstage to set it up.

Kimura contracted, touched her abdomen, extended an arm out with a Martha Graham-like hand, firm but charged, at its end. Lush reaches outward and simple, elegant turns of her head were abruptly punctuated.

When Kimura kneeled, the skirt folded inward, giving the illusion she was shrinking as her legs disappeared beneath it. As she pivoted, the skirt twisted and wrapped around her, gaining pleats as she turned.

Only once did Kimura diverge from her stationary stance. Lifting her skirt with one hand and her leg into a low arabesque, she defied what we had come to know as her world in the short time we experienced it. By the end of the dance, she had returned to her stationary pivot point, both feet firmly planted, but I was left wondering if there were more to this within the context of the larger work, or if Lang was purposely tantalizing us with just this small taste of freedom.

The closing work, “Tesseracts of Time”, was an epic journey through a series of realms, again employing the entire company. The metallic hammering of David Lang’s “Anvil Chorus” ushered in the first universe, the dancers clad in various black unitards buzzing frenetically below a projection of a yet-unidentified metal object.

Lang’s dances tend to appear propelled by their musical scores (most often in a good way), and this first section, “Under”, definitely did. Informed by minimalism and modernism, (David) Lang’s abstract, percussive score seemed to strip (Jessica) Lang’s choreography of its balletic sensibility altogether, the dancers moving fluidly through identities of several modern dance pioneers.

The projection screen then came all the way down, ushering in the next section, “In”, and revealing the results of an intriguing collaboration with architect Steven Holl. Surprising and mesmerizing, what looked at first like a live dancer lying atop a large sculpture was actually a to-scale video projection of that same scene. Appearing on, in, and between the sculpture’s many complicated facets, the dancers in the video defied gravity and reality.

At times a live dancer framed the projection, standing off to the side. It was unclear the relationship we were supposed to mine between the video and the stage, however, as the live dancers were always in shadow, lit only faintly by the blue light of the projection.

A striking moment in the video was dancer Eve Jacobs (a former high school classmate of mine from North Carolina School of the Arts) atop a whorl of the sculpture, promenading regally in attitude - a music box ballerina trapped in an Escher-esque universe.

Moving forward to “On”, the video screen flew up and away, revealing several white sculptures resembling origami across the upstage area. At first, the dancers seemed to fit less naturally into these real-life sculptures than their video counterparts into the virtual ones; moments such as when all the dancers peered out of one hollowed-out sculpture like prairie dogs solidified a connection to their real-life surroundings.

Color began to be introduced to a formerly black-and-white world: the cyc changed to orange, and then to blue; the dancers added orange swaths to their once-black, now-white unitards; pink light was cast upon the now-suspended white sculptures. The larger color changes evoked a journey from midnight to dawn, but the dancers quickly shed their orange swaths. 

Jacobs remained solely in white throughout, and seemed to serve as an anchor, a stalwart central presence, foreshadowed, perhaps, by her video-counterpart’s promenade. Once all other dancers had returned to white, they surrounded Jacobs as she balanced first in an angular penchee, then in a la seconde (she had also shown her balancing chops in an attitude en releve shortly before).

Yet another return had the cyc change back to black, losing the vibrant colors of dawn. The white-clad cast ended the dance in a rather Apollonian tableau (the Balanchine ballet, not the philosophical concept), Jacobs at its center.

While the four individual sections of “Tesseracts of Time” were complex and visually stimulating, I struggled to find a compelling thread that ran through all four, aside from the most basic - architectural elements and the dancers’ relationship to such. Though, with Lang’s adept vocabulary and her dancers’ technical grasp, I enjoyed “Tesseracts” for the ever-changing epic that it was (“Tesseracts” brought to mind Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet”, due in part to the score and also to the central and ever-shifting use of costumes and props, not always employed as heavily in contemporary ballet which is often primarily about the body).

Like the rest of the evening’s program, “Tesseracts” was danced incredibly well. While ballet companies always look fabulous in Lang’s choreography, seeing her own dancers perform her work was a different experience entirely. Her dancers’ often-dual sensibilities, many having spent significant time in the worlds of both ballet and modern dance, further illuminate the dynamic range and clarity of her movement.

I hope JLD comes through Utah again. Downtown Eccles Theater, I’m looking at you…

*I want to note, for anyone reading this who may have been in attendance on Friday night, that Jessica Lang is, in fact, one of many female choreographers in this country, rather than one of only a few, as indicated in a pre-curtain speech. Perhaps it was intended to say that she is one of a few successful female choreographers. In which case: while female choreographers may be underrepresented in the programming of larger companies/theaters/organizations, there are myriad female choreographers working in many cities, receiving vary degrees of recognition or success. It is commendable that Lang has had such success, and it is well-deserved, but her successes do not reflect a dearth of female choreographers in dance. For a more comprehensive list of current American female choreographers, check back on the blog in the near future.

Amy Falls is loveDANCEmore’s program coordinator. She also works for the University of Utah's School of Dance, her alma mater.