Margaret Jenkins Dance Company - "Wheel"

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in Wheel
Photo Kegan Marling

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
Wheel
Z Space, San Francisco
May 3rd, 2025 (matinee)

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company celebrated their fifty-second season this past weekend with a new fifty-five-minute, multidisciplinary work: Wheel. Before the piece had even begun, that image-rich titled had already evoked much. Of circles, of cycles, of turning. Of journeying, of being transported somewhere new. And as the eight dancers took the stage, those visions were everywhere. 

A circular attitude turn. The leg in grand rond de jambe. Walking the perimeter of the curved performance space. Dancers unabashedly rolling on the ground with the child-like glee of a youngster rolling down a hill. The audience seated in the round. And one of my all-time favorite Graham floor exercises. Starting in a push-up position, dancers swung their legs all the way around them to return to that opening posture. 

Differing points of entrance and exit mimicked spokes of a wheel. The audio of a ticking timepiece resonated in Z Space. Mary Domenico’s costumes added a sense of flow and twirl to each of choreographer Margaret Jenkins’ phrases.

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in Wheel
Photo Kegan Marling

The sense of journeying was abundantly present. Journeying to places of joy, connection, uncertainty and even resistance. A primal group dance of flat-footed percussion emphasized not only groundedness in the body, but a genuine connection to the earth. And the unison of that same sequence pointed to community kinship, a shared experience. A frenetic trio felt like a journey of exhaustion. Three women moved at break-neck speed, ultimately collapsing in a heap onstage. In contrast, a later ensemble statement spoke with a very different quality. The physical syntax was robotic and precise, almost militaristic. With a tone of defiance and desperation, dancers sporadically broke away from this unison, suggesting that compliance was no more. A penetrating moment for the viewer to consider social and political parallels. 

Throughout the performance, I was overwhelmed by another wheel reference. That of yoga’s fullest backbend expression, or as it’s more commonly known, wheel pose. Wheel pose is extreme; it requires flexion, groundedness and commitment. Not only a position but a process, wheel’s dramatic backbend cracks the heart and front body completely open. I definitely saw literal images of wheel pose in the choreography – extreme strength and flexion of the arms and hands as well as one actual backbend towards the end of the piece. But it was the absolute and total dedication of every dancer, artist and collaborator that conjured wheel for me. Each individual had vulnerably cracked themselves open and given everything to the work.

At close to an hour, Wheel was not too long at all. Though there were several moments in the last third that read like a finale, making the succeeding chapters feel a little out of place. And while most of the unison was solid and cohesive, occasionally it presented a challenge.