CHICAGO MOVING COMPANY
But as a choreographer she must also work with the beginnings, middles, and ends of dances, and there Shineflug isn’t as strong. In recent years she’s been adding text to her pieces, possibly to give them the additional shape and structure they need. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
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Her 1991 Bewegung, which opened her concert at the Dance Center, comes close to success, but like many of Shineflug’s dances it’s missing one thing. Bewegung begins with an anecdote: long ago, when Shineflug had decided to give up drinking, a friend said to her, “You’re lucky someone loved you when you were little. It saved your life.” That thought is a beautiful impetus for a dance, and the dance itself is quite beautiful–with soft, lyrical movements performed to a bittersweet piano and violin duet composed by Jeff Abell and played by Lezlee Crawford and Monica Reilly.
Her choreography for Intersections basically combines simple dance/theater exercises and childhood games: red light/green light, jump-rope songs, movement-transformation and word-association exercises. As we watch the movement onstage, Shineflug tells anecdotes about gift giving in different cultures. It’s lively and fun, but ultimately unsatisfying because the action doesn’t go anywhere.
