presented by City Dance
Palace of Fine Arts
Theatre, San Francisco
February 16th,
2015
With undeniable
mystique, creative presence and choreographic risk-taking, each performance of
Nederlands Dans Theater draws its audience in. Monday night at the Palace of
Fine Arts was no exception as City Dance presented Nederlands Dans Theater 2 in
a one-night engagement. The diverse and varied program included four short
contemporary dances created over the past twelve years: Johan Inger’s “I New
Then”, “Sara” by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, and two works by Sol León and Paul
Lightfoot, “Shutters Shut” and “Subject to Change”. The company dancers were at
their technical and artistic best; the choreography was breathtaking and
challenging; the house was packed. It was a great night of contemporary dance
performance in San Francisco.
The evening opened with
the longest of the four works, Inger’s “I New Then” from 2012. Clocking in at
just under thirty minutes, “I New Then” managed to span the dance genre
spectrum, utilizing narrative expressionism, abstract contemporary movement,
old-school unison jazz, and the requisite absurdity of dance theater. From a
pure movement perspective, “I New Then” was fast-paced, engaging and very
entertaining. Inger’s choreography is clever and it is dynamic. No question.
But the choreographic phrase material and the overall structure of the work
felt disconnected. There was a lot happening on stage, perhaps a little too
much. The ongoing narrative (while deconstructed rather than linear) got lost
in the constant stylistic shifts. And the two vocalization sections were
precarious. Vocalization is common in dance theater, often used as an
emphasizing or sometimes even an anesthetizing theatrical tool. In “I New
Then”, the vocalization felt extraneous and not woven into the larger sense of
the work.
A delightful dance
interlude followed the first intermission, León and Lightfoot’s “Shutters Shut”
(2003). A duet mixing stylized mime with contemporary choreography, “Shutters
Shut” was both gorgeous and compelling. In just four minutes León and Lightfoot
made a rather broad and successful statement on specificity, with distinct
movement, gestural precision and facial enunciation.
Photo: Rahi Rezvani |
Amid a smoky atmosphere,
a waved, cycled lighting design set the stage for Eyal and Behar’s mystical,
otherworldly “Sara” (2013). The brilliance in this dance is how it managed to
appear futuristic and substratal at the same time. Coordinating movements
(right arm and right leg) were favored over typical opposition (right arm and
left leg), giving the work a primitive, animalistic tone. Then, it moved
seamlessly into the ultramodern age. A group of dancers upstage right marched
and shuffled in place while a center stage soloist lip-synced to the score in
an exaggerated fashion. Very avant-garde.
NDT2 definitely saved
the best for last with 2003’s “Subject to Change” by León and Lightfoot. Aside
from some more unnecessary vocalizations, “Subject to Change” was a pure joy from
start to finish. The dance began with stoic formality as four men ceremoniously
maneuvered a large rolled carpet (later revealed to be red in color) upstage.
Soloist Alexander Anderson stepped across the carpet and into a technically
stunning variation, where sky-high extensions spoke of artistry, not
acrobatics. All of the dancing was just beautiful - the expansive and big phrases
as well as the intricate and subtle sequences. My favorite moment was of a
quiet nature, where soloist Katarina van den Wouwer slowly walked up Anderson’s
leg, her feet articulating like a cat’s paw. Throughout the dance, the red
carpet was shifted, adjusted, folded and spun. Sometimes the alterations were
anticipated; sometimes not. Circumstances and situations were in a constant
state of flux, hence the well-chosen title. And as the two soloists navigated
these changes, we saw a host of genuine reactions – surprise, struggle and
steadfastness.
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