ABOUT MEN . . . ABOUT WOMEN
Jan Erkert makes dances for mind and eye alike. Strong, appealing dancers perform expressive movement with absolute authority and without affectation; shifting spatial patterns and dynamic configurations of dancers occupy every inch of performance space; unexpected moments of stillness jolt the viewer. Her dances probe both present and past, provocative rather than pedantic: they work on the viewer in the choreographic mode equivalent to well-wrought fiction–they show, they never tell. These are dances that tackle significant issues, court ambiguity, and resist resolution.
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In Portrait of Five Men, the automobile serves as metaphor for sex, for mastery, for autonomy. The dancers alternately straddle, sit, and lean on black folding chairs: they slump to the edge of the seat, arms and ankles crossed; they lean forward, legs spread, elbows on knees; they stand, foot on chair, chin on hand, elbow on knee. The movement that accompanies the text’s portrayal of the first, most youthful figure–especially the chest pounding–recalls our most stereotypic images of the masculine.
Lewy was injured during Friday’s performance. On Saturday, Erkert chose not to cancel Portrait of Five Men but to stage the dance with Lewy in an office chair with wheels. He poked fun at himself and his injury; Oury, mostly silent, danced around his partner; and Gongora and Schulze drifted on and off, materializing just in time to execute a lift or balance in Lewy’s place. Saturday’s performance suggested that even the oldest, most tried friends must constantly negotiate to accommodate changes in their relationship–and aren’t necessarily happy or comfortable with the result. In just the same way, Erkert and the performers had to negotiate to accommodate Lewy’s injury.
McStraw manipulates Kantor: he sets her in front of his rocking pelvis, swings her in great arcs; she hangs limp as he lifts her by the waist, the shoulders. He takes her off the ladder; Raglin and Bornarth put her back again. McStraw hurls himself at the ladder and hangs and swings, limp and spent, swaying like a pendulum: he climbs to the top and looks caged, weighted. McStraw alternately taunts Kantor and encourages her to climb–she is ambivalent, and he is even more ambivalent about her climb than his own. She falls into his arms and he lies baldly: “Don’t worry, Abby. It’ll always be there.”
