Amy Seiwert’s Imagery
![]() |
Pictured: Beth Ann Maslinoff in Nicole Haskins' With Alacrity Photo: David DeSilva |
SKETCH 6 – Use Your Words
Cowell Theater at Fort
Mason, San Francisco
July 8th,
2016
A quartet of dancers costumed
in cheerful white cascaded onto the stage. Spinning, running, leaping, pressing
their palms to sculpt the space, reaching out in arabesque, suspending in the
air - vitality and elation in every moment.
Here was a jubilant
start to the sixth edition of Amy Seiwert Imagery’s SKETCH series, running this weekend at Fort Mason. For each SKETCH program, Seiwert welcomes dancemakers
and company artists into a choreographic incubator, to craft new work informed
by a specific theme, question or challenge. This year, Nicole Haskins, Seiwert
and Val Caniparoli experimented with the conversation between movement and
text, bringing three distinct perspectives in With Alacrity, Instructions
and 4 In The Morning (An Entertainment),
respectfully. Also joining these world premieres was a reprise of Adam
Hougland’s Cigarettes from 2011.
Danced by Beth Ann
Maslinoff, Kelsey McFalls, Annali Rose and Andre Silva, Haskins’ With Alacrity was a statement of pure
joy. Joy in the choreography; joy in the experience of performing; joy of
sharing the material with an audience; joy of being in that moment and with
that community. In terms of the relationship between dance and language, With Alacrity took a conceptual and
multi-layered approach. The lyrics of Swamp
Song with Ania (by Wael Elhalaby and Anna Roznowska) likely brought
inspiration. Perhaps also the title of the work - alacrity meaning brisk,
cheerful, enthusiastic and playful. I wonder if Haskins employed these word
prompts when creating movement phrases or as an improvisation rehearsal device
for the dancers.
Hougland’s Cigarettes, the only returning piece on
the SKETCH 6 program, evokes a
nostalgic mood from the very start. In an entr’acte of sorts, three men slowly
set the scene with a table, chairs and a retro refrigerator, which opened to
reveal the stunning Sarah C. Griffin and an array of high-heeled shoes. In the
brief dance theater work, the four engaged in a dramatic, theatrical and emotionally
charged pas de quatre about relating. Various formations abounded, including
phenomenal featured duets (by Scott Marlowe and Ben Needham-Wood; Griffin and
James Gilmer). Cigarettes is mysterious,
atmospheric and transitional – almost like a cigarette itself. An entity that
starts out as one thing, and as consumed, its structure changes and it becomes
something different.
With Instructions, Seiwert looked to Neil
Gaiman’s poem (of the same name), and synthesized a spoken word/choreographic piece
for a narrator (Marlowe) and an ensemble of dancers, accompanied by cellist
Michelle Kwon. In a pseudo-concerto form, Instructions
oscillated back and forth between recitation excerpts and choreographic
interludes. Each dance sequence retained the mood and intention of the spoken text
but did not attempt to be a direct representation. While the choreography and
performances were fantastic, it was the structure of the work that compelled
the most, at least for me. Instructions
was a skillful and innovative foray into storytelling, in fact, the dance felt
like a sophisticated and cultured storytime. Poetry was read aloud to the
group, and instead of looking at corresponding illustrations in a storybook, the
audience was seeing those images, live and animated on the stage through
Seiwert’s choreographic voice. Physical shapes of geometrical poetry, marked by
a mystical ambience and cemented by Marlowe’s commanding presence.
Closing SKETCH 6 – Use Your Words was
Caniparoli’s 4 In The Morning (An
Entertainment), a humorous full cast suite, scored by William Walton’s Façade and Edith Sitwell’s poetry. A
digital clock was projected on the upstage left curtain, beginning at midnight
and ending at four in the morning, as per the title. Throughout the dance, the
timestamp progressed within that four-hour period and a number of different
vignettes accompanied each new point in time - solos, trios, pas de deuxs. At
1:49, Caniparoli choreographed a hilarious Celtic solo (danced by Marlowe); a
compilation of traditional reel and sword dance with some disco club motifs
mixed in. From 3:02-3:22, Rose and Rachel Furst cycled through a flirty,
whimsical, waltzy variation, joined on and off by Silva and Marlowe. A number
of narrative interpretations were possible, though I saw 4 In The Morning (An Entertainment) as a dream cycle. Dreams
transform quickly from one idea to another, sometimes keeping a sense of
consistency and sometimes morphing to a completely different plane and scene.
Dreams are abstract, yet narratively based; sensical, yet also outlandish and
strange. 4 In The Morning (An
Entertainment) conveyed all of that. And looking to Caniparoli’s chosen
text (Sitwell’s poems), there is a similar and connective throughline. When reading
about her work, you will find differing analytic perspectives – are her poems abstract
streams of consciousness or framed in some kind of deconstructed or image-based
narrative? Or is it a bit of both, sitting somewhere in between? Seems that 4 In The Morning (An Entertainment)
perfectly captures this paradox, and it does so with wit and fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment