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. 

RDT: Emerge

Repertory Dance Theatre’s Emerge was an opportunity for each of its company members to choreograph a short piece performed by local dancers. This review reads like the show itself: eight disparate dance works, reflected upon individually. Although the choreographers might share conceptual interests and influences, having performed with each other extensively, their works were not directly in dialogue with one another.

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You Can Sit With Us, choreographed by Justin Bass:

The dancers began scattered on the floor amidst overturned metal chairs and tables. This careful dishevelment ended immediately when the dancers started moving, tidying up. They rose doing lovely tilts with their legs while beaming at the audience and putting the outdoor furniture in well-balanced arrangements. Occasionally the dancers would arrange themselves downstage and gaze at the audience invitingly. I wondered what warranted their relentless expressions of joy mixed with occasional ambivalence and why we were invited to sit with them.

One Step Forward, 500 Miles Back, choreographed and performed by Efrén Corado García:

The lights illuminated García in a striking position - his back to the audience, dark tresses shifting with his rippling arm movements. The piece was parsed into images triggered by the lights going off and then on again, similar to David Parson’s Caught. García, however, was not “caught” in midair, but grounded. He seemed to transform into a new entity for each snapshot, his still-visible silhouette  running to a new location onstage and then settling into position in quasi-darkness (due to the blaring lights from the sound booth). Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel gently pushed the dance forward; each repetition of layered melodies created a common thread between dynamically distinct movement images.

Miasma, choreographed by Jaclyn Brown:

The first third of this piece was a loose-limbed solo danced by Alicia Trump, whose hands occasionally cupped Martha Graham-style, but without the usual rigid arms and contracted torso - a compelling anachronism. This was followed by another solo danced by Marty Buhler, whose likewise loose limbs traversed the opposite diagonal. In the third section the two abruptly came into contact with familiar combative duet material. It was more interesting to witness the two when they were physically separate but moving in relation to each other, connected by common movement vocabulary and compositional elements rather than the obvious physical connection that is expected of a duet between a male and female. The piece started so strikingly with isolated solos, but deferred to duet material without precedence from within the piece to do so.

Figure it out, choreographed by Tyler Orcutt:

This piece consisted of a foundational walking pattern executed by Natalie Border, Tiana Lovett, and Gaby Zabka. Their knees were bent while walking, keeping them in a middle range between standing and fully descended, which they remained within even when they deviated from the walking pattern. Sometimes one dancer would fall in a sustained manner into the arms of the other two, or all of them would do their own phrase. But they consistently settled back into the original pattern that seemed to demand a lot of focus, both from the dancers to stay in sync and from the audience to “figure it out”.

Folie a Deux , choreographed by Nicholas Cendese:

Company members Ursula Perry and Daniel Higgins performed this duet exploring the “madness of two”. Their shared psychosis was manifested in a tense physicality and dim lights. Higgins repeatedly lifted Perry’s arm from the wrist, then tried to encircle her with both arms, only to encircle air as she ducked out of the way. Perry usually manipulated Higgins indirectly while repeating her own phrase that would happen to nudge him out of the way or allow her to slither out of his more direct grasp. Folie a Deux seemed to be an unabashed acknowledgement of the futility of repeating the same action without resolution.

Ipseity, choreographed by Daniel Higgins:

The music of Turkish composer and DJ Mercan Dede created a driving sound texture to which seven white, female dancers moved confidently while wearing identical tan, long-sleeved mini-dresses with slits on the sides. A loose narrative developed, punctuated by a scene in which all of the dancers stood around Elle Johansen who was lying supine. Natalie Border placed her hand on Johansen’s torso and then moved downstage. The two performed mirrored movement upstage and downstage while the other dancers sat in the middle creating a barrier. The piece ended with a powerfully tender solo performed by Border downstage while the rest of the dancers were shrouded in darkness upstage.

after/ever, choreographed by Lauren Curley:

For after/ever, Curley mixed and matched . Dancer Micah Burkhardt wore a skirt that matched the shirt of partner Megan O’Brien. Composer Eli Wrankle performed the violin live onstage, but was accompanied by a recording of himself that served as the rhythm to the melody that he performed. Both pairs - skirt and shirt, melody and rhythm - were separated by space and composition. The implied interdependency of these pairings was subverted by the fact that each component was operated by either another person or a rigid recording. Sometimes Burkhardt would lift O’Brien onto his shoulders or balance her in a fetal position on his reclined torso, emphasizing that the two were not actually one entity despite what their outfits might imply. after/ever brusquely revealed glitches in connectivity between autonomous beings.

Lively Sa-Sa, choreographed by Justin Bass and Ursula Perry:

This collaboration certainly was lively. The dancers had all participated in the company’s Winterdance Workshop and this piece served as a demonstration of what they had done. The movement was alternately wiggly and linear, like a graceful classic jazz dancer acting silly on the dance floor at a wedding reception. The workshop seemed like an upbeat way to stay warm in the beginning of January.

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Emerge seemed to feature mere glimpses of what RDT dancers are interested in choreographically partly because it was structured like a recital, not an interwoven concert. I am curious to see if any members continue these explorations beyond initial emergence.

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

an end of year musing

2016 is hard. In undeniable and contradictory ways.  

And the position of loveDANCEmore is challenging: desiring to comment on vital artistic and political intersections but also being a non-profit, largely unable to comment lest it be rendered ineligible for funding.

In a larger world, an organization may publish a piece with a caveat that it's not necessarily the views of the staff. But loveDANCEmore pieces are written pretty exclusively by staff due to the size and scope of our resources available.

So what to do? 

I've settled on what I usually do, which is tell the truth and hope everything else turns out okay.

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When I was in graduate school, we had a History/Theory/Criticism course. During a class session we cycled into a conversation on modern dance in Germany during World War II. I don't remember how we arrived there but I remember the result. 

Two of my peers said that they understood the position of artists who stayed in Germany during the war and "they were just trying to make their art." 

A third peer, Neta Pulvermacher, silently picked up her pencil and threw it (like a dagger) at their faces saying calmly and clearly, "them making their art killed my family." 

Having grown up on a kibbutz, Neta was uniquely more positioned than I was to offer a comment of any kind. And truly, until I saw the pencil fly, I was following the previous train of thought, unable to think of any recourse the artists may have had.  I was only 22, everyone else in the conversation was much older, returning to receive an MFA having already begun astounding careers as choreographers, performers and educators. 

I made a silent agreement with myself in that moment that, if required, I would remember what Neta said and find the fortitude to recall that making art is not excused from political reality. 

I receive money from the state government that is filtered down from the federal government. Is this receipt an endorsement of that government, even if it's used to make political work? Is it ethical to accept money from an entity whose leader verbally vows abuses against women, among other abhorrent behaviors? Is it appropriate to wait and see what happens, or is it essential to immediately commit to an alternative revenue stream? 

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In Utah, and universities across the country, dancers can still become "Certified Movement Analysts," proving that they have completed study of concepts outlined here. 

Laban developed "Labanotation" and worked with the Nazi regime in World War II, coordinating festivals funded (and approved) by Joseph Goebbels. Some claim his attachment to Nazi ideology was for his own survival, but he's still accused of removing non-Aryan pupils and promoting other deadly views through German schools of dance. 

Although his concepts about movement have been defended to me, my brain boils them down to this: why would anyone want to codify something as individual as human movements if not to reduce their explanations of bodies and therefore people? And why do we give experts in that codification an acknowledgement of mastery? Why does the program training students in the work of Laban make no mention of its inherent genocidal world view? 

One of the more potent defenses was from a friend in Salt Lake who learned English as a second language and found the highly verbal process to give him entry points into communicating about dance. The viewpoint that Laban unwittingly gave a gift to a person who would've been eradicated at the time he made his work is not a silver lining, but a painful reminder. 

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In high school I took a class called "American Problems," which should've been called "Republican Mormon Propaganda in Public Education." To allegedly learn about dictatorships, we were forced to enact one. Football players were allowed to be fuhrers, demanding that we buy them snacks of their choice and giving us our grade based on whether or not we were aggressively heteronormative and deferential enough. 

When asked to be the secretary of our new class government, I walked to the Vice Principal's office and asked if, instead of being verbally abused in class, I could write a paper.

In the same year, I advocate, in high school debate tournaments, for the disarmament of the United States nuclear arsenal. At that time I don't actually believe anyone will use nuclear weapons again but repeat aloud over 300 times that the United States is the only country to ever kill anyone with nuclear weapons. 

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The devastation nuclear bombs cause to Japan births Butoh. In undergrad, I will write a paper on Butoh as the embodiment of a dialectic, that the result of a violent political moment is this distinct dance which holds within it both the pain of nuclear warfare and a suggestion, rendered in the landscape, a body may also carry hope. 

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There is a story I've heard third- and fourth-hand about a local dancer who gave up a contract with a prominent company because she didn't want to be topless in a performance. 

In this debate I've come out largely in favor of the company and not the individual. Part of this is me, internalizing the constant requirement that Utah performance be modest, a requirement which only creates under-rehearsed rebellion. 

Why then, am I hopeful that individual Rockettes will protest a required gig at the Presidential Inauguration? 

Yes, being made to perform for the sexual predator President-Elect (remember, assault only has to be verbal, although he's accused of sexual battery as well, particularly in the dressing rooms of performing women) does seem like a powerful degree of difference from being asked to perform in a work where nudity is required. Yet, why do I hope for some women to have better agency and others to take it or leave it? 

Since writing, the internet tells me the "requirement" may be off, making me arguably more afraid about what women I know who desire to complete such a task.

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My body is here, in Utah. Where it's both normative and an anomaly. Where it's both situated in privileges (my demographic helped elect a person) and also denigration (that person doesn't think I am also a full, deserving person). 

The common threads of conformity and resistance are woven through performance because it is a tradition carried on the physical bodies of humans who live it. 

So, in a spirit of open-endedness, here are interesting winter reads related to the political moment (some of them I've read, others are new to me and I'm putting them here not because I know their content is good, but because the subject they purport to explore is relevant to the now). 

If you comment with additional offerings, I will add them. 

Lost and Found, PLATFORM

The People Have Never Stopped Dancing

The Work of Dance

Stepping Left

Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage

Black Performance Theory

Dancing Class

Dancers as Diplomats

Dancing into Darkness

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Ashley Anderson directs loveDANCEmore as part of her non-profit, "ashley anderson dances." 

River of Rosewater

Salt Lake City’s Municipal Ballet Co. recently presented River of Rosewater, a reimagining of The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky’s score was arranged by local band, Pixie and the Partygrass Boys, and the bluegrass background and prominent saxophone begged you to familiarize yourself with Tchaikovsky’s iconic work all over again.

River of Rosewater was a time capsule transporting the audience to the early 1920’s from the moment they walked in. The motif was justified throughout the performance by every detail; the costuming, the music, and the choreography. This particular performance of Municipal Ballet’s was specific to the historic McCune Mansion located in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, but the limited audience capacity of 60 sold out weeks in advance. I was lucky enough to attend an open dress rehearsal at another historic space, Salt Lake’s Clubhouse. Clubhouse was once home to the Ladies’ Literary Club but is under new ownership and open and available for use. The art-deco architecture fit perfectly with the Gatsby holiday vibes Municipal Ballet originally anticipated with the Mansion site.    

Sarah Longoria is the director of Municipal Ballet Co. Along with the help of her dancers, Longoria wrote and choreographed River of Rosewater. I’ve seen the past few shows of Municipal Ballet’s and I can’t help but notice and fall in love with Longoria’s themes that set her apart as a choreographer but particularly, as a ballet choreographer. Longoria prefers to dance to something other than classical music and she has deep-rooted support for live, local music. Longoria is constantly finding musicians throughout Utah to bring into her self-created spotlight. While Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite is the most classical and typical “ballet” music I can think, Sarah was able to find the means to reinvent the score to meet her aesthetic.

Longoria pays attention to detail, and not just in the dance. She pays attention to every costume, every performer’s character nuances, the energy of the venue, etc. For example: I was wondering why the company did not charge for the open dress rehearsal. Come to find out, Longoria wanted the audience to be able to bring their own drinks because it was fitting to the theme and vitality of the performance (Utah’s laws won’t allow you to charge for a private event with alcohol being served). That attention to detail sets Longoria’s artistry apart.  

Photo by Temria Airmet of Municipal Ballet Co. in a dress rehearsal for River of Rosewater at Clubhouse

Clara Silverhouse, danced by the always lovely Tristana Yegge, is about ten years older than we know her. The show begins with a holiday party where Clara sips a little too much absinthe and has a vivid dream full of dancers and a mystery man. Each dancer sets the tone by wearing unique and custom-made, 1920’s-inspired dresses. The choreography mixes line-dancing and the Charleston as the dancers weave in and out of formation. The performers and audience were smiling and clapping along to the music.   

The dancers in Municipal Ballet Co. possess flawless technique and it’s incredible to witness the execution of their lines in such small quarters. Their movements do not shrink even though an audience member is mere inches away. As a concert audience, we have become overly familiar with viewing dance, particularly ballet, in a theatre setting. And I wouldn’t say it’s rare to see dancers in a close setting. Modern dance does not surprise its audience with the use of an obscure or forcefully unique venue, but in the ballet world, I believe Longoria is in uncharted territory, at least for Utah’s dance community.

An array of soloists then performed for Clara, each with a contemporary rendition inspired by the original work. The standout piece was the Arabian duet performed by Brian Craig Nelson and Cynthia Phillips. Smooth, almost acrobatic movement kept continuously curving and kept the energy twisting. My eyes couldn’t look away.

Photo by Temria Airmet of Municipal Ballet Co. in a dress rehearsal for River of Rosewater at Clubhouse

The magic of River of Rosewater came in Tchaikovsky’s music. Pixie and the Partygrass Boys took on the daunting task of arranging the score. They gave me a new appreciation for Tchaikovsky and how timeless his work is. The classic melodies of "Waltz of the Snowflakes" and "Trepak" were rebirthed with saxophone and distant vocal harmonies leaving me stunned. Pixie and the Partygrass Boys took a score that most dancers know all too well and made it sound brand new. I feel the same for Longoria’s story line. The Nutcracker is a story many of us know all too well. The roaring 20’s-take on Clara’s experience made the whimsical world of The Nutcracker much more relatable and, in my opinion, more enjoyable because I could connect to it. Municipal Ballet Co. did a beautiful job at reinventing a classic. I am sad that I missed the actual showing at the McCune Mansion, but if the performance went even half as well as the dress rehearsal then I would call it a charming success.

Temria Airmet is the Artistic Director of Myriad Dance Company. She received her BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah and currently teaches with Ballet West, Tanner Dance, and Millennium Dance Complex.

Myriad Dance: Lights

Myriad Dance Company presented “Lights” at The Downtown Artist Collective on Sunday night. Myriad donated all proceeds from the project, spearheaded by co-director Temria Airmet, to the Utah branch of Volunteers of America; the six performers and five musicians donated their time as well.

The Downtown Artist Collective is a small storefront on 100 South that offers handmade wares by local artists and artisans. For the show, store displays were pushed against the walls to make space for dancing; similar to other recent shows, such as those at Main Street gallery Art 270, the “stage” itself was fairly small and the audience sat right up to its edge.

“Lights” dealt - sometimes literally, sometimes indirectly - with the social and political climate that has come to a head in 2016, and I felt Myriad’s intent and hope from the moment I walked into the space. It was packed, with hardly a seat left in the house, but I was able to squeeze myself to the front and secure a (very good) seat on the floor. I noted my negotiation in and amongst a sea of people as a boon in a world where understanding and acceptance seem to occasionally take the back burner; “Lights” was not only Myriad Dance Company’s reaction to 2016, but a call to action.

The audience and I experienced physical closeness during our viewing of “Lights,” and were (gently) forced to be mindful and accommodating of both the space we ourselves take up and that which others take up around us - an idea whose easy extrapolation is how we coexist in the larger world.

The space featured a hodgepodge of lamps, occasionally turned on and off by the performers, that created a general tone of intimacy. Perhaps, we were not at a performance but instead sharing thoughts and conversation in someone’s living room. Additionally, live musicians both accompanied and were interspersed, salon-like, between the dancing numbers: a guitarist, a husky-voiced folk singer, a singing guitarist, a dancer-turned-vocalist, and my favorite musical performance of the evening, pianist Joseph Chang.

The dances in “Lights” featured different groupings of the six performers, including creator Airmet, and since no choreographic credits were mentioned in the program, I assume most were made collaboratively.

Two solos by Airmet bookended the show (except for a group finale) and were the most potent, searching works of the evening. Airmet always performs with unwavering conviction, and these solos were no exception. They featured poetry spoken, and presumably written, by Airmet and complemented her often-gestural and alternately soft and hard-hitting movement. The choreography could have been considered simple if unaccompanied, but in tandem with the words, it illuminated Airmet’s myriad (no pun intended) strengths as transporting performer, imaginative writer, and thoughtful human.

Throughout other sections, Airmet looked like she could be reciting poetry in her head as she danced - so specific were her expressions as they related to her movements. Intent manifested with varying degrees of maturity in other members of the group, but a general sense of personal investment in each dance was always clear.

Performer Ashley Creek exhibited compelling clarity, hers such that it travelled through and articulated her entire spine. Kendall Fischer radiated honesty and warmth in her sweet, short vignette with another dancer.

Seeing the performers’ unique identities onstage was a reminder that we all possess complex inner realms, though not all do or are able to express their hopes and concerns as openly as through performance. For me, “Lights” was a shared experience in vulnerability, empathy, and inclusivity, and a call to remember those things in our daily interactions.

Myriad implemented a wide range of choreographic choices given the limited space: tour jetes, slides to the floor, battements, and hitch-kicks, sometimes in groups of four, five, or even the whole company. I will posit that the dances, though earnest, could gain from indulging the expansiveness the choreography seemed to crave with either a larger space (though I recognize usable and affordable space is hard to come by, even in SLC) or by allowing more dances to have fewer participants; solos and duets usually offered the most breath and fullness.

The intimate setting at The Downtown Artist Collective uniquely drew focus onto individual performative arcs (differing, perhaps, from Myriad’s previous “Doors”), but the underlying concept for each dance, regardless of number of dancers, was group unity. I felt this net of unity cast not just over the performers, but also over members of the audience as we negotiated knees and coats.

Sometimes the net was cast directly from performer to audience, such as when Alyx Pitkin began to fall forward, only to then be caught by the group, suspended over the first row of audience members. I, too, felt kinesthetically involved, when I experienced wind from a leap across my face on several occasions.

Casual intimacy was a successful thread throughout the show. At one point, dancer Sierra Stauffer leaned against the piano, played again here by Chang, to sing; she oscillated between a contemplative, inward focus and sharing inviting smiles with audience members.

Less effective were moments when the dancers seemed to perform for an audience imagined farther away than actually the case. In my viewing of “Lights,” it was important that the performers acknowledge our proximity, a uniting factor over the course of the evening.

In her second solo, toward the show’s end, Airmet spoke, “My voice got quiet because the truth was hard.” Through “Lights,” she has found a voice, both for herself and Myriad, in movement, music, and performance. For the group’s finale, Airmet, who often invokes music by Kanye West in her work, used his 2016 song “Ultralight Beam”; it was her most effective invocation of West yet. The group found stillness in a tableau at the song’s conclusion, while still breathing heavily (“Father, this prayer is for everyone that feels they’re not good enough”), then, blinking their hands like twinkling lights, reached skyward.

Amy Falls is loveDANCEmore’s program coordinator and a regular contributor to the blog.