Behold(en)

Editorial
Transparency. Mystery. An inner logic. A sense of inevitability. Surprises. Singularity. These are some of my criteria for evaluating the dance work that I see. In general, I steer clear of formal critiquing or public declarations. Yes, I serve on panels where I give my honest opinion. Yes, I tell my friends what I really think. But I’m still in the trenches, and my role right now is to wholeheartedly engage, not to pull back and objectively analyze. So when asked to write a piece about a “best of” the 2009-2010 season, I needed some convincing. I ultimately agreed because, though I tend to resent a challenge, I have to take it on. So: I saw 44 local dance performances from September 2009 to date. This list does not count the shows I had the honor to dance in, choreograph, or both. It also does not count the theater, opera, and music I also attended. I’m just sayin’: I see a lot of stuff. I think my judgment of others’ work is softer than it was before I started choreographing work myself. Prior to 1999, I watched with a hungry dancer’s eye, mostly from the perspective of wondering if any given piece would be satisfying to dance. But not all dances are dance-y, not all are meant to feel or look good. They emerge uniquely intended, communicating with specific vocabularies, attempting to connect. Now, I empathize with what I think is trying to transmit through the fourth wall. I try to put aside my particular aesthetic tastes. I attempt to peer into what is being expressed, seeing past what is on view through to the intention behind it. Making my way through the list of great work I've seen this year, I force myself to boil it down to one dance that I will talk about here. For me this is not a “best of” so much as a “dance I keep coming back to.”

Shatter(ability)

With humble acknowledgement of my flaws, quirks and preferences, I want to single out Earth, the last movement of Sense(ability), Uri Sands’ latest full-evening work for TU Dance. The work was performed twice last season, at The O’Shaughnessy in the fall and at the Southern Theater in the spring. (Though both were great, when I describe my viewing experience, I am referring to the fall performance.) They are dressed in white baggy pants rolled to mid-calf. All are barefoot, the better to feel the floor. The music is percussive, mesmerizing. There is a building-up, a drawing-out, an urgency within ritual that necessarily takes its time. Earth shattered me. It left me speechless in my seat for some time. It brought a lump to my throat. It was as refreshing as snow falling in a desert. What was great about the piece was that Uri stuck to his guns. He began with a seed idea, and he sustained it, like Ravel’s Bolero, for many, many minutes. The dancers fulfilled the mandates of the movement and were so exhausted in the process that there was no room for anything else. No extra emoting needed. Physically fulfilling their tasks was just the thing. A circle of dancers undulates in unison, bodies buckled in half and stomping. The group accumulates, one by one, in support of an ebbing solo. A chorus line of dancers across the stage deftly intermingles, alternately high then quick-scrambling low down. Uri’s already signature earthiness redefines excavation. He strikes oil. I keep coming back to the part about Uri sticking with his idea. He allows us to witness its growth. It is rare to see that in action. Ideas are so ephemeral. We fear their simplicity, likewise their complexity. Artists constantly return to source material, but sometimes they develop to the point that the initial impulse gets absorbed. And that’s ok. That is way legitimate. You have to be somewhere to go somewhere. But at other times, like this one, you get to see the source seed bloom. The ending is like an ancient tribal celebration: multi-colored people in white, sweaty bodies keeping the beat while snow begins to fall. The image continues into the blackout. I think I hear sleigh bells. It’s kind of like Christmas, or how Christmas should be—pure joy and also hopeful yearning that stretches the heartstrings.

Resonance

The main criteria that makes a great dance for me is in what lingers. What am I left with when the curtain comes down? Ultimately, I love dances that cause me to forget that I am a dancer myself, yet also render me speechless and mutely thankful that I am indeed a dancer; dances that invisibly seatbelt me to my chair, dances that gently release me upward, and dances that make me go, “That’s dance!? Dance can be like this!?” To dances like these, I am most beholden. What lingers about Earth is the memory of how my heartbeat finally slowed back down to its regular murmur. But the lump in my throat was still there as I turned to my husband, willing him with my eyes not to ask me something that required anything more than a nod.
Headshot of Penelope Freeh
Penelope Freeh
Penelope Freeh is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and writer. She danced for James Sewell Ballet for seventeen years where she served as Artistic Associate. Her writing has appeared in Dance Magazine, METRO Magazine and on barefootpenny.blogspot.com. In 2010 she received a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Choreographers and won a SAGE award for Best Performer. She teaches Ballet at the University of MN. Her new work, SLIPPERY FISH and other offerings of New Music and Dance, in collaboration with composer Jocelyn Hagen will be at the Southern Theater September 28 - 30: ticketworks.com.