The evening continued with "Under Friction," a multi-media solo by Ferro. A skillful performer, he seemed to suspend in the air in arabesque for hours in front video projections of urban decay and notebook sketches. Set to a captivating score by Annie Gosfield, the landscape hinted of a prison of some sort; this was an unfamiliar and lonely place. Ferro appeared like a small cartoon character dancing atop the screen as the camera scanned rusty pipes and faded iron rods. The dance created the feeling, for me, of glimpsing into one's journal and searching for the meaning of the writing on the page.

The program ended with a duet choreographed by Sutton and performed by the two men, called "Belasco Duet," which was not only entertaining, but felt ripe with hope and gentle adoration.

The second performance I saw was Luciana Achugar's "The Sublime is Us" at Dance Theater Workshop. Presented in a mirrored studio, the dancers were often behind the audience, so that the action was seen by looking into the mirror, rather than at the dancers. This mediated view created an often-obscured vision of the whole. When dancers moved in various states of undress behind you, staring in the mirror felt somehow disengaged, but turning around felt intrusive.

In the beginning of the work, the dancers sunk into each other in a way that seemed to extinguish the individual. In other moments, they peered at themselves in the mirror as if their only friend and worst enemy was there right there in front of them.

At one point, Achugar, 7 months pregnant, led us through an exercise in the dark -- an exploration of the pelvis. As the lights came up, some of the audience members were still rocking back and forth with Achugar and the dancers.

We got the sense that this studio is the world of these performers. We were allowed to watch, but they seemed alone with themselves and with each other. Strangely, and most interestingly, this solitude was not lonely, but knowing. The performers seemed to gather a kind of mystical power from their own gaze, and from their remote connection to each other. In some moments, they simply passed time unselfconsciously with each other; one dancer played piano badly; another pressed herself against the mirror. And then, in what felt like only a minute shift, the dancers became sorcerers, rolling their pelvis forward and back, reaching over our heads at themselves in the mirror.

It was as if we were bearing witness to a secret ceremony. I found myself reminded of Derrida's notion that choreography is female and of Balanchine's contention: "Ballet is Woman." I am not sure what we were celebrating during those brief bewitching passages, but whatever it was, it was intensely fecund, female.

The third performance I saw was DD Dorvillier's "Choreography, a Prologue for the Apocalypse of Understanding, Get Ready!" The work began with a humorous exchange between Dorvillier and performer Joaquim Pujol, who acted as her translator as she described various things including her outfit, what she was supposed to do before she did it, and what Pujol was supposed to do. In an example of failed communication, when Dorvillier asks Pujol to interpret her actions through movement, he merely continues translating her words.

In another strange and humorous segment, a group of dancers sat down around a keyboard. Each opened her mouth when she played a particular note. As this continually occurred, a narrative seemed to form. At one point, the composer, Zeena Parkins, got up from her table near the audience and came over to adjust the foot of a performer. The dancer's ego appeared to be injured by this gesture and when she let out her next note, she looked right at Parkins and let out a low, loud bellow on the keyboard.

There was much I didn't understand in this work, but Dorvillier has a way of creating atmospheres at once strange and inviting, which kept me searching and hoping. During the course of the 80-minute dance, it appeared to me that there was little communication occurring, and the efforts to communicate seemed labored and awkward. A feeling of endlessness and futility, shrouded in colored light by Thomas Dunn, permeated the space. Little, if any, progress is made. If this was Dorvillier's message, I heard it loud and clear--and that is to say, I felt confused and unsure, like a traveler in a foreign land where just as something begins to look familiar, it disappears.

Modern, Enthusiast, Performance (all tags)

Full discussion: http://blog.danceruniverse.com/blog/story/2009/1/13/12249/5815