DANCING TO THE NEW MUSIC
Last weekend MoMing Dance & Arts Center and New Music Chicago presented “Dancing to the New Music” to showcase local composer-choreographer collaborations. It was the first joint presentation between the music organization and the dance center; but while the evening had an aura of excited anticipation, the results were not auspicious.
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The first work on the program, A Room of Wishes, was choreographed by Jan Bartoszek, director of Hedwig Dances, Inc. She and dancer Bryan Saner were accompanied by Kathleen Ginther’s taped collage of sounds, which brought to mind dripping water and unwinding springs. The score was as meagerly defined as the movement. We first saw silhouettes projected on a screen to the side of the stage. Amorphous profiles slowly became discernible: first a torso, then a leg, finally a high-heeled foot. Through a change in the lighting, the screen went black and the stage was lit, revealing a woman facing the audience from inside a kind of box–three see-through panels, with one side open to the rear. A man facing the audience was revealed standing outside Bartoszek’s box. The lights went out again; and when they came on, still shrouding the dancers and much of the space in shadow, the couple were facing each other. As they moved, always in slow motion, their figures were transferred alternately from stage to screen, by the dimming and illuminating of spotlights.
Isosceles Triangle, the last dance, happily mated taut, sharp movement (from the highly capable Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble) with a searing, pounding score by Richard Woodbury.
