The Illusion of Life in Circus

UtahPresents has brought a potpourri of performances to Salt Lake City’s Kingsbury Hall. Within this wide expanse, Cirque Mechanic is perhaps the most unconventional of troupes to tromp on its stage. Acclaimed as the most recent reincarnation of circus, the group displays a prestigious cast with many Cirque du Soleil veterans. But while Cirque du Soleil transports viewers into whimsical fantasy, Cirque Mechanic strives to find whimsy within the mundane of everyday life.

Cirque Mechanic’s Birdhouse Factory features a “widget” factory representing the depression era. The show focuses on the workers within that factory through playful shenanigans and outbursts of talent. Narratively, the injury of a bird in the factory boiler brings this group together in caring for the animal, transforming assembly line drudgery into a flourishing community. The aims of the show are simple and obvious. To quote the program directly, “Birdhouse Factory delivers a timeless message of hope, camaraderie, and the power of the human collaborative spirit.” These themes of fluxed in and out of cohesion with the inherently individualistic circus acts, sometimes getting lost in the close concentration elicited by individual performers.

Image by Larry Rosenberg

The show attempts to transplant traditional circus vignettes into one storyline by assigning each performer a character. This would create continuity if there were an equal balance of development among the characters, but Birdhouse Factory only successfully fleshes out characters with more personable talents. Juggler Thom Wall played the part of the factory’s high-strung boss, mischievously balancing cups with the same charisma of a court jester. Chase Clup’s “Clown Radio” used his facial dexterity to show an enormous breadth of emotion as he conducted the audience through a bird tweet rendition of Beethoven, games with a tape measurement, and Britney Spears cameos. These two performers were engaging and jovial in how they related to the audience.

The rest of the cast was homogenized — without a distinct role in the narrative flow; however, some value is found in how the prop-based acts engaged with the setting. Cirque Mechanic claims Birdhouse Factory is unique because of its relationship between performance and machine. It is true that the acts with mechanic components showcased well, even without character, because they were able to emulate the setting of a factory. Cornell Freeney’s strength on the German wheel invoked the image of a turning gear. The three trampoline artists’ act naturally situated their characters as workers who flipped on and off of a high beam while on break.

Meanwhile more whimsical acts, such as contortion and aerial arts, felt abstract and unanchored within Birdhouse Factory. These acts rode on memorable moments — distractions from their clunky transitions. An exception was the chair stacking act that culminated in the hanging of a bird house, which provided a concrete connection even if only in its conclusion. In contrast, the hoop dance performed by Elena Sanders felt like an anti-transition, beginning with a female worker tearing off her uniform to reveal a showgirl outfit underneath as she performed for her fellow workers during their lunch break.

I noted an overall lack of congruent female representation. Female characters were either non-existent or reminiscent of circus eroticism. Circus performance at its core embraces and enhances the exotic and sensual, which in combination with a lack of narrative representation felt overbearing for the few female performers, who were undeniably talented and could have held stronger roles. The overly imagistic and unsubstantial female characters in Birdhouse Factory served as an antecedent to the alleged injured bird, who was not seen at all until the last scene. As the instigator of the plot, the bird should have provided the binding of the show, but her image was lost among the whimsical and sensual performers of Cirque Mechanic.

I dream that all these critiques could be applied: characters could be more collaborative, smoothing the narrative flow; the pace could be quickened to avoid excessive mono-focus; and the female presence could be given more holistic roles. Ultimately, Birdhouse Factory is still a circus show with a circus format. I applaud the specialties of each individual performer, all masters of their crafts. I ask more of Cirque Mechanic, if they want success l within their own expressed themes. More hope, camaraderie, and power. If Cirque Mechanic wishes to show the circus within real life, they need to find the overlap between realism and escapism.

Brianna Bernhardt is a current loveDANCEmore intern and a BFA candidate in the U of U’s School of Dance. She aims to cultivate creative excellence and promote academia within the arts through her role as a student leader and freelance artist. She enjoys going to museums, reading books, and taking long walks without destinations. Find her on instagram @bybriannabernhardt.

SALT Dance at Kingsbury Hall

The Invitation — September 16-18, 2021 — by SALT Dance gave the audience cohorts a delightful and light-hearted show that used various locations throughout Kingsbury Hall as innovative performance venues. The UtahPresents and the SALT Dance team both wanted a return to having a live audience in the theater after a year and a half of cancelled, postponed, and virtual performances. As we all know, this goal was complicated by another wave of COVID-19 and the politicalization of precautionary measures. I was impressed with the way contemporary dance was able to adapt to the challenges.

The show combined comedy dialog, singing, acting, choreographed movement, and creative staging to keep the audience wondering what was coming next.  

Distancing was provided by breaking the audience into groups of twenty who started through Kingsbury Hall at 30 minute intervals. After gathering in the second floor lobby the show began with a quick comedy exchange of tour guides followed by moving into the balcony where green dots on the floor indicated reasonable spacing while masked. After a brief opening dance performed on the proscenium stage the dancers ran off while the audience moved to the east stairwell where they were greeted by the echoing sounds of singers soon to be joined by the dancers. Then the action moved to a dance on the sidewalk outside, a chance to sit in chairs while watching a performance that used the backstage freight elevator as the setting, an operatic solo performed in the downstairs dressing room, and a performance at out in front of the loading dock.  The show ended with the audience seated facing outward on the main Kingsbury stage with the dancers downstage, but giving the feeling that the movement was going on out in the house. 

SALT Dance press image.

Unifying elements to the show were a somewhat bewildered maintenance man guide, the nineteen-twenties popular music, and repetition of clear, recognizable dance themes like high leg swings, contorted, angular body shapes, and use of initiation and response.  

The small audience cohorts and intimate performance spaces created a unique opportunity for everyone to be close enough to see every nuance of facial expression. The dancers used this to great advantage, and at times they were doing more dancing with their faces than with their feet. The small-group setting also faciliated audience interaction, something that is difficult to provoke in a large theater.  

It was an immersive and delightful experience and much enjoyed by the audience. The Invitation got people away from YouTube and Zoom, and reminded everyone why we treasure live performance.

Disclosure: The reviewer was a donor to the show.

John Veranth has been a mainstay of Salt Lake City’s dance community for many years as theatergoer, supporter, maker and performer. John and his wife Martha Veranth both perform and take class in various contexts around town and can be seen at many performances in the audience. John has danced character roles in various local ballet productions as well as collaborating on more experimental projects. He was recently seen in Alexandra Barbier’s experimental evening Take This With You at Commonwealth Studios.

RDT's return to the stage

Repertory Dance Company opened their 2021-2022 season with an evening of three works by Lar Lubovitch. It is rare to see a performance that showcases such longevity: both in the span of work and the length of the collaboration. The works presented had premiered in the years 1978, 2018, and 1976. Even more impressively, Lubovitch first collaborated with RDT in 1975 — a connection that has existed for forty seven years. With this context, North Star was a performance that celebrated the practice of returning again and again for new shared moments. 

Lubovitch’s choreography is distinguished by his use of counterpoint. Counterpoint is a musical device where melodic lines are both interdependent and independent in harmony, melody, and rhythm. Lubovitch translated this quality to the human body. The dancers remained interconnected through linked arms, repeating steps, and a uniform movement quality and yet each person was on their own track. Each person darted through space with spontaneous bursts of energy. Throughout the works, the dancers cascaded in pathways that swirled in and around each other. This contrapuntal quality offered a dizzying chaos while creating a sense of shared connection. 

The first work of the evening, “North Star” (1978) and the show’s namesake, refers to Polaris, the famous star that holds still while the northern sky moves around it. Thematically, this further captured the essence of counterpoint. This piece was incredibly structural in nature. Lubovitch noted that the movement was inspired by the actual shape of the constellation. The dancers moved in a way to embody the celestial torso, legs, and arms from an aerial point of view. Of course, the audience was seated in a proscenium theatre and was left to their imaginations to envision this intended imagery. The dancers had grounded, fast moving legs, paired with easeful, airy arms that found moments of bright suspension. Several times, Ursula Perry was lifted into a horizontal position with her legs bent — capturing a snapshot of the constellation in a single moment. I found the swirling patterns, repetitive movement, and balletic shapes to create a kaleidoscope of changing images and patterns. 

Suddenly, a beam of light poured into the center of the stage and Lauren Gresens, a guest artist from SALT Contemporary Dance Company, appeared. She was wearing a long, loose black dress. Her body erupted in electric shutters and thrashing bursts. Her head shook and her arms poured through the air. This solo was meant to symbolize the brain of the constellation as an electric center. Gresens’s movement was striking and took my breath away in its raw, messy nature that juxtaposed the poised, suspended nature of the previous movement. 

Throughout the evening, brief videos played between each piece that shared interviews with Lubovtich and Katarzyna Skarpetowska, who restaged these works. These videos offered additional context, glimpses at the rehearsal process, and insight into the choreographer’s intentions. A dancer in the audience remarked that these videos “took away some of the magic of the evening.” However, several other audience members who are newer to the discipline of dance, remarked that these videos offered an invitation for them into the performance experience. They found these films insightful, encouraging, and eliminated the feeling of being an outsider that they have felt at previous dance performances. There will always be strong feelings about the right amount of context and the value of an artistic work to stand alone. However, I find RDT’s performance videos to be inviting and ultimately, creating an access point for many folks to experience dance in new ways.

“Something About Night” (2018) plays with memory. Lubovtich seemed to create this piece as an epilogue to his journey as an artist: this choreography serves as a reflection on his full body of work. He incorporates fragments of duets and trios that allude to many of his past pieces. Lubovtich notes, “Mainly, my motivation was that I want to be quiet. I think I value quiet now. And in this dance, I’m seeking a quieting of the mind.” I find this incredibly poetic. After nearly 125 choreographic works, what remains is quiet, stillness, peace. There was something very grounded in this piece. The music gave off an elusive, echoing quality, as if it was being played in just a couple of rooms away, just out of reach. I found the lighting of this piece to be incredibly striking. The middle of the stage was lit with a warm glow that dimmed and dissipated toward the wings. The dancers moved from the center of this stage to the edges and would fade like shadows at dusk so I could just see the edges of their movement. The four dancers in this piece: Perry, Lauren Lenning, Trung “Daniel” Do, and Jonathan Kim presented an easeful, strong quality as if they were sharing one long sigh together.

The last piece of the evening, “Marimba...a trance dance” (1976) began with the dancers moving diagonally across the stage with a slow, sustained nature. They seemed to be running in slow motion with moments of unison and slight syncopation. This moment was simple, lasting for several minutes. It reminded me of water pouring over a collection of stones and the way that this liquid can seep through crevices and trickle in cascading patterns. The dancers were free flowing. 

As the piece developed, the energy increased and dancers were caught in an “ebb and flow” like pattern. They began jumping, stomping, and twirling in large circular patterns. The dance was supposed to reference cultural trance dances that carry people to an elevated state of mind with movement. The piece was lively but did not seem to energetically build enough nor reach a sustained climax to fully capture this tradition or imagery. It felt slightly insincere and unfulfilled to allude to trance dances while using balletic movement on a proscenium stage. I did appreciate the use of minimalistic music that facilitated an arch in the movement dynamics. The dancers curved their spines, bounded through the air, and remained deeply connected. By the end of the evening, there was a feeling of collective suspension that emanated in the dancers’ limbs and in our breath as an audience. 

Rae Luebbert is a multidisciplinary movement artist and arts administrator based in Salt Lake where she works in dance advocacy for Dance/USA, academic advising for the University of Utah, dance education, and art making. In 2019, Rae produced a show entitled Rosie surrounding the complexity of the color pink and its relation to gender, identity, and storytelling. Rae has presented and performed work with Dance Place (DC), Juanita Winston Dance (Maryland), the Hirshorn Smithsonian Museum (DC), and Sample Series (Salt Lake). Recently, Rae performed in Hundred Years Hence produced by Deseret Experimental Opera.

How to tell the story of hip hop?

If asked what dance repertory Salt Lake City has to offer, my mind does not instantly leap to any specific hip hop company. I might recognize Ballet West or Repertory Dance Theater as historically-minded, however, perhaps I should add 1520 Arts to this list after watching their annual performance  They Reminisce. For those unfamiliar, 1520 Arts is a non-profit that, according to their website, showcases “Hip Hop Arts as a viable path to success” through practice, performance, and education.

Joshua “Text” Perkins, co-founder of the Bboy Federation, provides omnipresent narration for the entire production. He begins with the explanation that the point of the show is to talk about the things that have “come before us and laid down the groundwork for us to dance.” They Reminisce certainly does this and could be considered successful except for the duality within Perkins’ closing claim: “hip hop is more about the vibe than the moves.” These two statements, not inherently contradictory but certainly different, somewhat misalign.

The framework that ensued consisted of fractured segments that aimed to highlight movement by category. Each segment varied in length and in number of performers, though most were brief and precise. Perkins threaded the audience through the evolution of hip hop by displaying excerpts of locking, popping, and house. This first half of the show had the difficult task of “authentically” embodying ten hip hop “topics" in succession. Naturally, some were performed with more skill than others, but even the best of the show felt somewhat sterile. I found myself missing the organic coolness, which flickered in during exemplary moments but was more often smothered by over-curation.

One such example is found in the mid-show transition. I had read about the advertised narrative of a crew of young dancers trying to find their voice within hip hop and I was curious as to how Perkins would transition historical reflection into present-day action. I found that the only transition provided was by intermission, which didn’t connect the two portions and instead created a division between history and present. If you've seen the show, you know exactly what I am describing — it is the same every year. There are benefits and draws to the recurring nature of They Reminisce, but I noted that the audience was especially engaged and familiar with the second narrative act.

Perkins describes the birth of hip hip in the Bronx, photo by Sara Caldiero

I expected to favor the historical reflection, but improbably I enjoyed the narrative portion more. This is where the performers were allowed to present their full range: their specialties, playfulness, and innovation. Buddy Hills had a suede sequential quality to his style. Precious Stovall had a wonderful classiness of minimalist nuance. I was, of course, awed by the velocity and precision of the cast's many bboys and their propeller-like windmills, twisting inversions, and buoyant footwork. The use of illustrated projections of the performers were especially effective in smoothing the transitions between dance segments. This portion gave the audience what they were wanting: a showing of a current hip hop revolution.

While I am excited by the principle of a hip hop repertoire and the virtue of 1520’s mission statement, I found that They Reminisce relied so heavily on morals that the performance bowed under the weight of its own educational structure. The dynamism of the music was able to carry the movement through its shifting tones, but it did so so bombastically that the result made the narration cumbersome. To the average layman, the historical aspect could still be fantastic. I wonder though, how many audience members return to the show hopeful to see new creations. 

They Reminisce provides an enjoyable evening, but one only returned to by those already dedicated to the SLC hip hop scene. If 1520 Arts desires to create an engaging repertory, their show’s structure and conception would need to match the skill of its performers. After all, if hip hop is more about the vibe than the moves within it, the individual moves should not outshine the overall experience.

Brianna Bernhardt is a current loveDANCEmore intern and a BFA candidate in the U of U’s School of Dance. She aims to cultivate creative excellence and promote academia within the arts through her role as a student leader and freelance artist. She enjoys going to museums, reading books, and taking long walks without destinations. Find her on instagram @bybriannabernhardt.

Here’s another view of this performance from Sara Caldiero…

The performance opens with a club scene and the entire cast is present. It is clear that the HERC has been doing their work. What a crew they formed! There is a balanced mix of women and men. They are young and spry. Lots of long, natural hair — which adds to the physical motion. These dancers embody styles from eras outside their lifetimes. In the beat they connect to the African roots of break dancing. The costuming is a patchwork of colors — so bright and alive. The “popping” piece is truly well choreographed — a piece by Marc “Big Chocolate” Cameron. Where aspects of fine dance are displayed. I’m struck by the execution of synchronized complicated moves.

The show seeks to be historical, education, and informational entertainment. I didn’t know that hip hop is forty eight years old and hails from 1963, deep in the Bronx. There is also a storyline to the show. A kid preparing for a dance competition — the internal struggle is real.

The second half of the show opens with house music and a battle. Here the movers show their flair and pop it. In the battle scene, I wanted to see the women confrontational. I wished they would participate in the fight. Instead, they pranced across the stage. Fighting with choreography instead of power moves. It is not often enough that we see tough guys dancing in our culture. This is one way for it to be socially acceptable for them to dance. Their power and presence on stage is notable.

photo by Sara Caldiero

One choreographer in the bunch really stood out, Tristan Gray, set the stage with moment connected to African roots. His piece, SCR Reborn was a very complete composition.

The show ends with a message of, “Peace, love unity, and having fun.” As well as, “Vibes are more important than moves.” I left the show with good vibrations. The beauty of the show is that it reminds and inspires one to reminisce.

Sara Caldiero is a writer, book artist, folk dancer, and creative arts instructor. Her proximity to wilderness has inspired her to teach, write, and perform. She enjoys bringing poetry to people in classrooms, on desert adventures, and to drifters on the street. She is in an MFA program for creative writing and completed a BA in English from the University of Utah. She is the creator and director of Hunger for the Arts, an art program that provides workshops and food for homeless teens in Salt Lake City. 

Her work has been made public through chapbooks, a broadside by Dreamgarden Press, literary anthologies, and performance. Book art publications include: Hotels, Snatch ‘N’ Sniff, and The Headless Housewife: A book of Anarchy and Imaginary Solutions. Some notable performances as a featured poet are: Utah Arts Festival, Utah Humanities Great Salt Lake Book Festival, and the City Art poetry series.

Ririe-Woodbury's autumn return to the stage

Ririe-Woodbury premiered two new works this past weekend, On Being by artistic director Daniel Charon, and Two Hearted by Keerati Jinakunwiphat. Jinakunwiphat is a New York-based dancer and choreographer, and recently graced the cover of Dance Magazine as the one of their “twenty-five to watch” in 2021. Both works reverberated as a reflections of the pandemic, creations made after living, dancing and coming-into-close-proximity were suspended and theatened. What exactly was it about dance that initially drew us in? What did we really miss? What will we rediscover when we come back together?

The answer for these choreographers seems to be relishing in the simple act of sharing space. Both of these works were paired down; bodies sweeping, lifting and carrying. The sensation of touch and partner work, trusting another enough to let them propel you through space… really is and was enough.

On Being begins with dancers running, one by one, and eventually all together. I’m transported back to the early days of the pandemic, the treadmill-like monotony, the seeming endlessness of it all. In that monotony there is a comforting beauty, not unlike hearing a clock tick and being reminded that time exists. The piece will end with a nod to this beginning, but instead of running, the dancers are grouped together, touching, swaying in a reduced slow dance. A dancer is then carried off the stage, spinning round and round. I half expected this duo to circle backstage and reappear — the work continuing on indefinitely — but instead the lights went dark.

More notable elements of the piece are costumes by Melissa Younker, a former RW dancer. Each ensemble was unique in line and shape, and the color palette of sky blues, mustard yellows, and olive greens created a striking ensemble. Lighting by William Peterson progressively gets darker throughout the piece, potentially offering metaphor, or at minimum providing a linear structure. Megan McCarthy and Fausto Rivera have a beautiful duet; Megan has the extension of a ballet dancer, but the “organic everything can shift at any moment” energy of a modern dancer. She forces nothing, is well partnered by Rivera, and they walk off the stage holding hands.  

RW performing in Charon’s new work, photo by Sharon Kain

Charon’s work is satisfying in its clarity and quiet restraint, and unfortunately Jinakunwiphat’s work suffers by following it. They are similar in structure, and although on the surface look very different, they employ similar choreographic strategies, and Charon’s is the stronger of the two. Two Hearted did have its own beauty; the R&B music broken up with text delivered by Miche’ Smith, who at one point stands atop her peers shoulders in a silver sequined dress. She speaks clearly to the audience, “Mirror, mirror on the wall… who is even there at all?” Peter Farrow performs a fully embodied solo, his body breaking, undulating and finding stillness in interesting ways. I struggled to find the underbelly of this work, but after such a hiatus from seeing live dance, I was also content to sit back and let the movement wash over me.

A moment from Raja Feather Kelly’s Pantheon, photo by Sharon Kain

The last work of the night, Pantheon, is a dance theatre work by Raja Feather Kelly and it originally premiered in 2017. Nothing escapes this pandemic lens, and when the lights came to reveal the dancers in white underwear, white socks, white shoes, and white wigs, my first thought was, “Oh yeah, before the pandemic we made pieces like this.” This is an ambitious, often outrageous hyperbolic work, with the program note detailing that it draws on celebrity culture, reality TV, The Rite of Spring, the work of Andy Warhol, and his (in)famous fifteen minutes of fame. I could see all these references, and while none of them were painstakingly investigated, they often did combine to form striking visuals, which maybe is enough. If a still life is enough in visual art, can moving still lives be enough in dance? I think Andy Warhol might yell Yes! Considering Kelly lauds Warhol as one of his biggest influences, perhaps that is the key into this work.

The dancers spread their legs, torso hanging over, pelvis suggestively pulsing up and down. It was performative sex, devoid of any pleasure or organic impulse, ritualized and hinting at the driving groupthink we often see in The Rite of Spring. There was also a fair amount of running in this work, and while the running in Charon’s piece hinted at monotony and melancholy, these runs felt saturated in futility. We run because we run. The final image of the night was red rose petals falling from the rafters, bodies sprawled on the stage as if dead, suggesting that perhaps beauty will exist in destruction, but only if it is framed that way.

Erica Womack is a Salt Lake based choreographer. She teaches at Weber State and SLCC and regularly contributes to loveDANCEmore.