In "Open Suite/WHOOSH ... the traffic," six plainly dressed dancers puzzle over and lie on white painter bib overalls on the floor - yep, the floor - before covering up with them. And when the musicians upstage play, it's as if the dancers were hearing it all along. Movement is so specific that it stands alone and creates the beats left out of Moshier's score. Furthermore, the dancers are right there to be watched, like a life-sized portrait moving just under the collective nose of the audience. The faces and runs and frontal ta-dams that make me crazy on a proscenium stage are effectively made good when the dance floor is under my feet.
Weaving in and out of a pleasingly stable, asymmetrical light, the dancers pose and jump and run through a series of motions so engaging, so inexplicable, that I nearly embedded a picture of Snoopy hugging a valentine just to express my satisfaction. So, I'm a sucker. I really loved this piece. The patterns and shapes were so engaging, the dancers so focused and calm, the dance and the music so exactly what they needed to be for each other that I can review no more. I'm too smitten! I won't even tell you about the wacky ending and that rare and awesome thing, the pleasing use of undressing in dance. (In lieu of YouTube, some slightly vintage NPR! Thank you, Professor Seiters... erm, Leslie?...)
As for "Surrender, Dorothy!," the second piece on the bill at All Saints... well, I'm not crazy about it. I may regret saying this, but: the faces, runs, and frontal ta-dams here are better suited for a traditional stage space.
Oh, look! Someone else thought so, too:
Photo: Jeannette Harshbarger
The lavender-grey costumes, subtle motifs, and sung poem (key words: "women and elephants never forget") are awfully effective, as are the two black boxes being moved around the stage throughout the piece, subtly but powerfully changing the space. But I'm kept from total inundation by "Surrender, Dorothy!" when Mr. Perez's choreography interrupts itself. It's a tic of sorts: the jump in place. It is so perky, so energized and resilient, that my otherwise thorough sense of something slow and sad is continually interrupted, like a mellow Miles vinyl with a scratch. Furthermore, there are melancholy solos that imply narrative in an otherwise lyrical piece. I simply can't follow. Perhaps my attention span was short; perhaps I'm just sensitive about jumping in place? Perhaps this may have been solved by the good ol' thrust stage, but as for the All Saints Episcopal Church, I felt alienated from the people right in front of me.
Lest I leave the impression that grey feelings displaced gay ones:
WHOOSH!
