BEST OF DANCE FOR $1.98
Likewise, no one goes to see “Dance for $1.98,” or even “Best of Dance for $1.98,” expecting polished performances. What we look for is work with potential, with an unusual texture or sensibility. And in MoMing’s recent “Best” performances (the sixth annual showcase of work by little-known choreographers culled from last summer’s program, with new dances added), what stood out were the interesting failures and the unexpected successes. Dances by Patricia DuChene, Barbara Magee, and Kris Eric Larsen were performed on the first weekend; dances by Anne Kuite and Darryl Clark made up the second.
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There were a number of odd features about Larsen’s work. Each piece started with a “dictionary” to establish the vocabulary of the movement that would follow. Choreographers often repeat gestures meant to evoke certain objects or ideas, but I’ve never seen anyone stand up at the beginning of a dance, do a little pelvic thrust, and say “phallus” (as Larsen did in Heart Phallus Foetus). And his dancing often isn’t like dance at all–there’s lots of ordinary walking, and lots of gestures that in their primitiveness and isolation suggest ritual more than evolved dance forms.
DuChene’s dances were the smoothest of the five choreographers’ but also the least engaging. She choreographs to somewhat abstract, classical music (here Arcangelo Corelli and Philip Glass), and her style is dramatic: in Whisper Beach, her premiere, she and her dancers danced very much for and to the audience, their gazes boldly riveted on us as they moved about the stage. DuChene herself has large, dark, very handsome eyes, but this continual eye contact with the audience was unnerving, and not in a way I think was intentional. She seems to ask continuously for our approval, or to implore a response of any kind.
Semaphore, Kuite’s equally successful premiere, managed to create an entirely different mood: it’s humorous and playful, brightly lit and brightly colored. Music is supplied by a drum (played live by Michael Kirkpatrick) and a recording of what sounds like a square-dance version of Handel’s “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.” (Interestingly, Kuite makes a performer of her onstage musician: he occupies center stage for most of the piece, and he’s the first to walk on–he deposits his drum; walks off; comes back with a drumstick, which he examines as if it were some kind of martian artifact, then drops it; and finally returns to begin playing.) The message of the piece is simple but elegantly presented. Semaphore, like dance, is a visual language for the body. Both can seem excessively formal, rigid, or constricting, but under the right circumstances these languages come to life, become an instrument rather than a dead set of rules. Even the dancers’ bow–stylized, broken down into its components, and driven by the drummer’s beat–reiterates this message, but makes fun of it at the same time. The cheerful ironies of this piece, so much in contrast with the eerie, almost frightening atmosphere of Garden, highlight Kuite’s versatility.
