ERNST/WATSON/DANCE
It’s great to see talented people stretch. Choreographers Christina Ernst and Sam Watson have been collaborating since 1986, under the aegis of Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble; now they’ve got enough good work for a rich, funny program all their own, with help on the dancing from able-bodied recruits Judy Austin and Richard Havey.
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The second couple’s movements are stagy and clunky, sad caricatures of Ernst and Watson’s graceful partnering: Austin clambers onto Havey’s shoulders with painful effort, scaling him as if he were Mount Everest. When Ernst and Watson reenter, now also ludicrously attired, the level of clowning escalates. A Balinese pose turns into a one-footed hop, the thumbs on splayed hands are suddenly sucked, noses are ringed with the thumb and index finger and honked. This is the other side of collaboration, when you’re in the studio dropping your partner on her head or fooling around, rudely grabbing parts of the other person’s anatomy–for Color, a necessary corrective to taking itself too seriously. The coda then returns to that seriousness–which looks even more serious by contrast. The most affecting part of the dance is when the dancers form two couples and the man and woman in each simply stand very close together and look into each other’s eyes. At this point a current seems to run between Ernst and Watson, and when each drops in turn to embrace the other’s waist it seems a deep expresison of mutual gratitude.
The last three dances on this program–Badum Boom, Tired, and Wired–also segued nicely from one to another; an unblushing deadpan opening provided the keynote for all three. The two women walk on holding what look at first like Dixie cups, but when they begin to flourish their arms, flamenco-style, sounds of baaing and mooing fill the air: they’re children’s cow/sheep noisemakers. Then the men come on with tiny tambourines attached to their dark jumpsuits, one tambourine on each breast, one on either side of the head, one in fig-leaf position, one on the ass, and several more in assorted other places. From there on in, the humor of the opening is all downhill.
