Fringe Lab: Experimental Performance 08/15/2011 12:22am

Abstract “This show, came together like the magical pieces and parts of a mythical creature forming right before my eyes—feathers, talons, scales, and furs, And a pulse in the soft underbelly of its flesh. Tonight, we offer you a glimpse into the unique worlds of five fierce and constantly evolving creatures. They have come a long way to be here, in these particular skins. Tumbled down from mountain tops, descended from open skies, they are crawling from the hollowed skins of ‘old,’ and unfolding wet, new wings of every color and design. Herein lies a rite of passage, a hovering between reality and the dream world of the creatures they have become, in this time and space, inside of this flesh.” –Tamara Ober, producer and performer for Present State Movement Method A five-part show featuring five solo performers, FLESH is an artistic collaboration between members of Zenon Dance Company and the James Sewell Ballet that uses dance, creative movement, and the spoken word to tell the origin stories of five mythical creatures. Results I had no idea what to expect when I walked into the auditorium and heard the soundtrack to the movie Moulin Rouge!, but for some reason it gave me a bad feeling. Then the lights dimmed, and a voice spoke in the darkness, reading the description above. My immediate impression was that the company needed a different writer, or a very thorough editor, for their spoken word segments—whenever I hear the words “mythical” or “magical” within ten seconds after a performance starts, I cringe, and hearing them in a darkened auditorium made me nervous about what I’d see next. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The lights came up slowly on a solitary figure, standing in the middle of the stage, so dimly lit that I could barely make out what I was looking at. It was obviously a person, standing in such a way that it looked like some kind of large, long-legged bird. The “head” of the bird was beautifully articulated—animated with the same kind of jerky, nervous movement you’d see in a real bird. I assumed that the “head” was the dancer’s hand. Then the lights came up all the way, and to my astonishment, I saw that the “head” was a foot—and that the dancer, of at this point indeterminate gender, clad in sparkly red boxer shorts—was standing stock-still in a position that even a contortionist would have trouble maintaining, barefoot, wearing ballet shoes on her/his hands. And the amazing thing was that, even with the lights up, the dancer still looked like a bird. The stance was a perfect optical illusion. Then, the “creature” went through a process of transformation—awkwardly, as if surprised by its own nature—as the dancer gradually upright, his/her back to the audience. It wasn’t until the dancer turned around that I really saw her—beguiling, androgynous, but clearly female. She moved with the awkwardness only the truly graceful can master—and her subtle and studied expressions and gestures almost completely convinced me that, even though I could clearly see that she was standing upright, she was walking on her hands. The other performances were similarly masterful—nearly every detail, from the onstage lighting and music to the smallest gesture, told the story of these creatures. There was a common thread in all of them—the struggle to live, to move, to be. Particularly noteworthy was Nic Lincoln of the James Sewell Ballet in "Dressage," whose creature moved through several phases of transformation in a seemingly complete life cycle. After emerging from a pile of furs and delicate fabrics, Lincoln's creature pulled a pair of Louboutins from the pile with its mouth, put them on, and learned the difficulty of walking—let alone dancing—in six-inch heels. Costume additions, music and sound collage, and an increasing complexity and range of motion indicated a growth in maturity and self-awareness as it struggled with, and eventually transcended, its own limitations. More problematic from a narrative standpoint were "These Years," choreographed and performed by Leslie O'Neill; Her Kind," choreographed and performed by Laura Selle Virtuccio; and "secondaries," choreographed and performed by Amy Behm Thomson. The metallic tub-percussion in O'Neill's piece and the mechanical movement of the creature's emergence did not transition seamlessly into the organic, feminine process of adornment and Cytherean rise before the triple mirror. It seemed as though this piece was rooted in post-de Beauvoir feminism, which suggests that women are made rather than born, and if that was the case, the lack of impetus behind the transformation was problematic. Virtuccio's depiction of a tortured creature (arhythmic music, chaotic movement) has much to recommend it, but in my experience, a sudden break midway through a dance performance for a spoken word intermezzo rarely works—it comes across mostly as an interruption. Her breathless recitation of Anne Sexton's "Her Kind" without the customary line breaks and natural pauses of lyric verse suggested incoherence rather than trauma, and it did not work in this piece. Incoherence did work, however, in Thomson's piece. Her one-winged, white-clad creature launched itself into a rush of wind and a panicked rotation of stiffly conventional and partially-realized dance moves that suggested the creature's inability to decide on a form—an indecision and lack of imagination on its part that, combined with the rushing wind, gave the sense that this creature was not flying, but falling. But this incoherence of movement created an aesthetic that lent itself perfectly to this beautiful and tragic story of the fear of flying/failure to launch...something many GenXers and Millenials can relate to. Conclusion Overall, this was a beautifully done dance performance in terms of performance skill, concept, and aesthetics. The only areas of improvement I could identify were in terms of narrative storytelling and lyric poetry—and perhaps these areas are potentially fertile ground for future collaboration with local storytellers and poets. Present State Movement is an imaginative group of young dancers and choreographers—I am looking forward to seeing more excellent work from them in the near future.