DAVID DORFMAN DANCE
Horn, a piece for two dancer-musicians created and performed by Dorfman and Dan Froot, begins with one of them slung upside down, hanging by his knees from the other’s shoulders and dangling down his back. The other’s every step is full of effort; one of their saxophones grunts. They lean, slip, and balance. One lies with his leg extended and one supports the other at an unlikely angle, both score and visual image “laid back.” The performers’ constant contact–they’re separated for only seconds at a time–determines their progress across the stage. The risk and trust inherent in their shared weight and balance is reminiscent of contact improvisation. But the dynamics of contact improv enable the performers to wheel, spin, and fall, stressing their fleeting liberation from gravity and the limitations of a single body; the dynamics of Horn impede Dorfman and Froot, emphasizing the precariousness and vulnerability of relationship. The score, too, creates an odd inversion of improvisation: instead of altering and amplifying the musical line, these two struggle for dominance; Dorfman even knocks Froot’s hand away from his instrument. Phil Sandstrom’s moody lighting and Liz Prince’s costumes–softly colored kilts and black oxfords–underscore the impression of unease, disquiet, and heaviness.
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One still, straight body, supported only at the shoulder and wrist, is lowered to the floor and into a fleeting embrace. This repeated movement stresses the dancers’ vulnerability, and suggests that perhaps there is some value in relationship after all, a possibility entertained as briefly as in Horn. However, Slow Run Back undergoes a subtle yet unmistakable transformation in its last moments: the women stand slightly apart and repeat now-familiar gestures in unison, but this time the two cupped hands reach out into space as if offering some fragile, precious gift; the lighting warms; their chests and forearms suddenly lift up and back, flinging their faces into a wash of golden light. The image is beautiful and somehow affirmative.
