Author: sfdancematters

April 23rd, “Berkeley Dance Project”

Choreography by many

CONTEXT: I had never been to a Berkeley student dance concert before.  Why this time?  A good friend (someone that I do not often go out to see such things with) suggested we go so I said yes.  I also knew one of the choreographers (Jo Kreiter) and am always interested to see works being redone (Flag by Ann Carlson).  My Dad was visiting with his girlfriend so I brought them with me.

RESPONSE: The dancers were strong and the pieces well-rehearsed.  This is the second time I’ve seen Joe Kreiter’s work in the theater and it had the same impact (that I wish she would stick to site-specific work).  The program notes set-up the piece, When to Let Go,  to be politically engaged/engaging by citing journalist Chris Hedges about the state of income inequality, which he called “the disease of empire.”  I didn’t feel or sense this message/question.  It was technically interesting, but for me that technique didn’t fit or produce the work’s intended message.  It’s fun to watch artful swinging, but it didn’t say much.  Falling Square was boring and too long.  It had some moments that resonated with its stated inspiration of the Free Speech Movement, but it didn’t hold up.  I’m pretty sure my Dad fell asleep (granted he was jet lagged, but still).  Flag was energetic and conceptually interesting – I was engaged and entertained. I was different and I appreciated how it was trying to convey.  The program notes were lacking in any meaningful orientation about the dance.  Perhaps that was intentional?

The blog had some great information that would of been helpful before not after the piece.  Perhaps it was the audience’s responsibility to seek out this information online rather than provide it on site (i.e. I like program notes).

April 19th, “Sarah (the smuggler)”

Choreographed by Sara Shelton Mann in collaboration with Keith Hennessy

What if I don’t get it?

I haven’t seen it yet, but I read a little bit about the background on this piece.  I must admit to some hesitation.  Does it matter if I know the history or Mann’s story? 

After seeing the piece, here are my reflections:

Moving history – Moving self

A beautiful exercise in present-ness

Archive/Study/Repeating Differently

Energy – energetic

Great words

I didn’t get the whole of the piece, but I came away with something. Sometimes dance makers/collaborators make dance for themselves or small “select audiences” (take a look at Hennessy’s interview).  I get that as a process, and yet I don’t get it.  I wonder how many in the audience had seen or worked with Mann before?

April 11th, “Pilot 65: Cruising Altitude”

Choreography by many

There were six pieces by six different choreographers and I wrote about everyone – it was a little exhausting.

Bush of Ghosts: The Back of Beyond, Marika Brussel

Ballet recital

Morning Poems, Sebastian Grubb

Better than the first, but very self-absorbed

The Great Discovery of Self & Selfie, Emma Crane Jaster with Marie Walburg-Plouviez

A little too long, but so sweet and fun.  I can’t wait to check out the film they were working on during the performance.  It was a delight to watch.

Beckon, detour dance

I must confess a little bias here – I know the choreographers and some of the dancers.  But it was smart (much smarter than the last piece I saw of theirs last year at the USF Dance Concert).  It was nuanced and playful – it spoke.  This is the kind of the dance that matters (to me).  This dance attempted to be part of a larger conversation about relationships, communication, and stereotypes.

Still Life for Two #2, Laura Simpson and Jenny Stulberg

The technical precision was stunning.  They never really left the floor after they slid down from the wall (still life set in motion).  The music was perfect (composed for the piece).  I really just wanted to see this again and again.  It didn’t speak, but it did demonstrate the beauty of technical precision.  And sometimes that is enough and just what you need from a dance.  One last point, I could see myself in this piece – I could see myself moving in this way; yes, I still miss performing.

Sensitive Pleasures, Esmeralda Kundanis

Laughter, absurdity, flash photography.  This dance also spoke with a growing, relentless ridiculousness about fashion/style, and the need to stay “one step ahead” and be better than the next.  The end was a little of a let-down (how do you end an endless cycle?).  Sure it was funny, but by the end I had a little knot in my stomach.  There was some truth happening here and the truth these days seems a little too much to bear.  Does it really matter when wealth inequality is wrecking havoc all over the nation?  When will enough be enough?  Will we ever see a point where we can start caring for people as people?

This was a fun evening of dance (so glad it got better in the 2nd ½).  I like what the ODC is cultivating with these programs.

April 9th,”Schokovitch Trilogy”

Choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky and danced by San Francisco Ballet

No one fell asleep this time!  I spent some time with the program and got a little caught in them, or rather the lack of them.  The best reflections on the piece came from the Musical director and Principal conductor, Martin West. To some extent, this makes sense given that the ballet is about the Russian composer Schokovitch.  I have no idea who wrote the notes about the dance but they end with this: “The color red is prominent; backdrops offer hints of Stalin-era Russia. Yet all three ballets are markedly different”.  This seems like an obvious point.  Why bother?  When I closed the program, I wondered why should I invest or care about this ballet?

In contrast, the SF Symphony program notes from 4/18 were stellar (yes, I am a little behind with my writing).  They were quite informative and even included suggested readings.  In the past, these suggestions have prompted me to read more about Charlie Chaplin, Chopin, and others. I felt not only welcomed, but respected as an audience member.  

I don’t really care if the MacArthur Foundation thinks Ratmansky (choreographer) is a “genius” or if the repetiteur is more forthcoming about the intent and emotion of the piece than Ratmansky.  Give me notes that offer more than just the obvious, give me something that matters to how might “see” the dance better.

April 3rd, “Antigonick”

Written by  Anne Carson  and Co-directed by Mark Jackson & Hope Mohr 

A friend of mine commented that she didn’t like this production of Antigone. She said as a story it left her cold; she didn’t really care about anyone.  Honestly, I hadn’t thought about that.  My interest in Greek tragedy, especially Antigone, has a history (Chapter 2 of my dissertation was about the Greek tragic chorus).  Hence, I am always interested to see how rhetoric gets treated in Antigone – how do the public/private, justice/law, man/god, individual/communal binaries get drawn – how much does the power of speech matter – how does the chorus move (rhetorically).  As such, I don’t need to care about anyone.   Antigonick doesn’t shy away from rhetoric even if it doesn’t “do it all.”  Not all the elements are in this production (a common fate of modern productions of Antigone, at least the one’s I’ve seen). But it didn’t bother me. Perhaps I was distracted by the dancing or the use of plastic and dirt.  Maybe it was the literal moving of a dead corpse throughout the play or the humor displayed by the messenger/guard.  There was a high level artistry in this production.  Antigonick reminds us that tragedy does matter (it can still teach).  Because we keep repeating their lessons, the Greeks are never that far away from us even if their tragedies appear differently.   I might try and see this again before it closes, and that doesn’t happen very much.

PS. I know this isn’t a dance, but there was a lot of dancing and I just couldn’t help but write about this.

March 13th and 20th, “ODC/Dance Downtown”

Choreography by Brenda Way and KT Nelson

I saw both programs.  In the program notes, Marie Tollon (ODC Theater Writer-in-Residence) suggests that the dances presented in this series respond to social and political issues (6).  So I took this as my starting point, or rather, my point of contact.  The first, “Boulder and Bones“.  I saw the premier of this piece last year and loved it.  The relationships between the choreography, music, staging, and video work to produce a high level of art.  It was beautiful.  I am not sure that it responds to a social or political issue, however.  I don’t think it really “speaks” in that way.  The other two pieces, “The Invention of wings” and “Dead Reckoning,” seem attempts at speech, but for me they failed to generate much thinking about social or political issues.  Tollon’s program notes indicate that “The Invention of Wings” (originally a site-specific work at the Ai Weiwei exhibit on Alcatraz) is a reflection on the freedom of expression and Dead Reckoning considers the “careless impact of humans on the natural world” (6).  Neither are fully realized.  There are stunning moments in both pieces, and the dancers move beautifully.  But there was something missing.  The SF Gate review by Allan Ulrich couldn’t get past the choreography – he seemed unable to engage with the messages of these two dances were attempting to articulate.

As the person sitting next to me said, “just because you have dancers that can do anything doesn’t mean they have to.”  I couldn’t agree more.  These two pieces seemed too caught up choreographic techniques to fully bring forth messages political or otherwise.

March 7th, “Age and Beauty Part 1: Mid-Career Artist/Suicide Note”

Choreographed by Miguel Gutierrez

I didn’t know much about this show going in except for the email from ConterPulse warning me of strong odors during the show, including fingernail polish.  I was kind of disappointed that fingernail polish was the only strong odor.  Gutierrez gave his program notes live in which he mentioned that the piece had 3 titles (note: this is similar what Keith Hennessy did for “Bear/Skin“; a trend I like).  I have to disagree Gutierrez.  I think there is only one title, but it is juicy one especially if you feel like geeking out on his use of a colon and backslash.  He also mentioned some dance theory, which I appreciated because I am a geek about that too. But I think he was right, you didn’t need to know the theory in order to get something out of the performance.

The piece began with two men – one in a women’s pink bathing suit, stocky build – the other a skinny white boy dressed in baggy white workout clothes.  They danced the same movement for about 15 minutes to Silvio Ecomo & Chuckie.  It was oddly superb.  There was nothing to focus on except the juxtaposition between these two different bodies.  It could’ve been longer; I wanted it to be longer.  In fact, this section of the dance is the only part that really stuck with me (yes, even more than when Miguel’s face was in Mickey’s balls).  It might be due to the fact that I found the later part of the piece a little too self-indulgent.  So I choose to stay connected to what resonated.  I appreciated the commitment to that level of technical repetition and how it directed my attention toward the sameness and difference of these two (moving) bodies.  How could it be that a skinny white boy moved “the same” as a chunky latino?  What does this say about bodies and how we see them?  Why don’t we see sameness in difference?  I enjoyed being led to these questions and would be keen for more.

February 19th, “Pavement”

Choreographed by Kyle Abraham

Abraham doesn’t let us off that easy and I’m glad.

I was captivated.  The technical precision and freshness of form was divine. And then there was the music, Bach and Vivaldi – I didn’t see that coming and it was treat.  I felt a sense of deep satisfaction in the bringing together of classical rhythm and Abraham’s hip hop aesthetic. The dance told a history and asked questions about our present moment.  This is a present struggling to make sense of what has happened to our streets and the “law and order” that keeps repeating.

January 30th, “the why ask why we dance dance”

Presented by Scott Wells & Dancers

“mimesis is how we dance”

The embodiment of word play.

Artful partnering.

A game of telephone.

But what really got me was hearing the word mimesis – this was a dance about mimesis and the play that is often a result of that kind of copying/repetition.   It was a thoughtful delight/a reflection on the beauty of dance to keep us repeating differently.