Yerba Buena Gardens
Festival
ChoreoFest 2017
Yerba Buena, San
Francisco
June 10th,
2017
Many dancemakers take
advantage of the summer months to take their work al fresca, offering
site-specific performances in alternative, natural settings or on outdoor stages.
This is also true in the Bay Area, though outside performances, even summer
ones, can be a bit risky in San Francisco – warmer weather and a cooperative
climate are never a guarantee, to be sure. That being said, sometimes the stars
align and this past weekend at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival was one of
those moments. Gorgeous weather, outstanding choreography, and uplifting
dancing was on the menu at ChoreoFest 2017, a three-day performing arts event
held in and around Yerba Buena, expertly curated by Ryan T. Smith and Wendy
Rein, co-Artistic Directors of RAWdance. I was fortunate to catch the middle
offering on Saturday afternoon, featuring three premiere works and one encore
from 2016.
Allegra Bautista in RAWdance's Requiem Photo Hillary Goidell |
Opening the program in
front of the Contemporary Jewish Museum was RAWdance’s haunting, stunning Requiem, choreographed by Rein, Smith
and Katerina Wong. Costumed in navy and wearing black sheer blindfolds, a trio
cycled through a slow, meticulous, meditative phrase, with their backs to the
audience. A range of small and large movements unfolded - from a single palm
rising to the sky to developpés in parallel second to huge grand rond de jambes
ending in arabesque. This first statement morphed into a larger ensemble as dancer
after dancer walked with purpose and strength into the scene; an openness and
calmness surging in every step, almost with a Tai chi like sensibility. Both vulnerability
and a deliberate spirit sang through the space as solar plexuses ascended
upward. And countertechnique lifts and balances added loft, breath and a
community spirit to the work.
While introspectiveness
abounded during Requiem, a somber
note was also very present, especially as the dancers peered out through the
sheer black masks. And the movement contained moments of fracture. Long
extensions of the leg would suddenly break at the knee or at the hip and poses
would purposefully collapse. But quickly these instances of fracture would
morph into something different and choreographically transcend into the
expanse. Because I arrived right as the performance was starting, I didn’t read
the program notes until after. Only then did I learn that this striking work
was titled Requiem, and it was a
remembrance for the forty-nine souls violently taken a year ago at Pulse in
Orlando. A response, a tribute and also an example of the inherent healing
power within dance – if you have a chance to see this work, take it.
The crowd made its way
across the street and settled just outside the Yerba Buena Forum space for
dawsondancesf’s hold fast to dreams,
a new trio from Gregory Dawson. Danced by Erik Debono, Frankie Lee Peterson III
and Jacob Williams, the piece started with the three leaning against a
sculpture. A series of percussive hand gestures and arm sequences brought the
trio away from and back to their starting position, after which they slowly
walked down the length of the building until reaching a corner boundary. Some
of the first movements recurred in this new place, but this time, growing and
developing. Debono, Peterson and Williams hugged the structure, making
different points of contact with the driving choreographic phrase material,
some partnering, some unison, cluster shapes and even parkour-like leaps. And
as the pas de trois continued, a physical essay on perspective and assumptions
arose. What happens when a wall becomes the floor? What movement is possible
when we flip our expectations? How does choreography read when it is performed
against surfaces, rather than being framed or contained by them?
Just outside the Yerba
Buena Theater for the Arts was the locale for Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations’ Still Life No. 6, the third premiere on
the Saturday afternoon program, choreographed and performed by Lauren Simpson
and Jenny Stulberg, with live cello accompaniment by Shanna Sordahl. In
brightly colored, long-sleeve, high neck unitards, the pair shared an artistic mélange
with the viewer, one combining deep creative process and choreographic
specificity. Small reflexive movements repeated in the shoulders, fingertips
and bouncing knees. Swinging arms reflected accumulation and diminution compositional
devices as well as changes in intensity and dynamics. Attention to detail was
everywhere in the excerpted work, be it in directional facings, the axis of the
body, the use of stillness, and of course in the gestures and movements
themselves. Such clarity and definition in every second, like the difference
between the palms lying flat on the ground as opposed to resting on the
knuckles.
As Still Life No. 6 reached its last third, Simpson and Stulberg moved
away from the central performing square and towards an adjacent wall for a
handstand series. Next the duo weaved through the audience, themselves sharing
a text excerpt and then inviting audience members to continue with the text while
they returned to their original performance space. In the program, there is a
note that the work “…draws various elements found in Doris Salcedo’s
installation piece Plegaria Muda.”
Part of SFMOMA’s collection, this particular piece is a grouping of bench
structures with sprouting greenery, arranged throughout a room. You walk
through it, deciding how much time to linger in one spot, which benches to
view and in what order. And so, there is an opportunity to be immersed within
Salcedo’s installation. I felt like a similar immersive experience was evolving
in this final section of the dance. And one recurring physical motif throughout
Still Life No. 6 had me mesmerized.
At several points, Simpson and Stulberg nodded and shook their head, looking to
the surface of the ground, and almost charting a path or a line. I wondered,
did this represent the greenery growth in Salcedo’s work? Or was it the path
that you take when viewing Plegaria Muda?
Perhaps it was something entirely different. I’m certainly looking forward to
considering these questions again.
For the last piece, we
transitioned to the middle of the garden space for The Movemessenger(s) in
2016’s Hummingbird, choreography by
Angela Dice Nguyen. A rumbling electronic score with voice text sang through
the open air. Into the space, dancers Hien Huynh, Cooper Neely and Linda Phung
offered contemporary physical movement, heavily inspired by martial arts
vocabulary: giant jumps and dives, sliding on the grass and powerful, deep pliés.
With a winning combination of highly athletic choreography and a profoundly
tender approach, Hummingbird felt
narrative to me. Not linear, but conceptually driven. The notion of a
hummingbird was present throughout, with literal motifs, like fluttering,
pulsating and vibrating alongside more abstracted flight imagery and
partnering. A lovely coupling of groundedness and suspension spanned the dance,
which finished with dramatic Limón swings, interspersed with parallel jumps.
And while completely coincidental, the low-flying birds that made multiple
passes over the performance space during Hummingbird
definitely added to the experience.
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