FACT/SF and LACDC
present
PORT
ODC Theater, San
Francisco
September 15th,
2017
Contemporary creators
have innovation in their blood, constantly pushing and testing the artistic
landscape. Whether through choreographic language, performance sites,
collaborative devices, technological elements, narrative content or structural
form, they mine for newness over and over again. FACT/SF has long been part of
that tradition, committed to growth, new approaches to physicality and
transforming the notion of performance. In addition, the company, led by
Artistic Director Charles Slender-White is a pioneer in arts programming,
seeking to identify the needs of artists and of the field, and working to develop
and create series and residencies that respond. They championed JuMP, Just Make
A Piece, encouraging choreographers to do just that, create work without
constraints or expectations. And this past weekend saw the debut of another
landmark project, a joint venture between FACT/SF and LACDC, LA Contemporary
Dance Company, under the Artistic Direction of Genevieve Carson. PORT, or Peer
Organized Regional Touring, is a brand new platform, hoping to make touring
more of a reality for small/mid-sized dance companies and encourage artistic
dialogue between regions. PORT’s inaugural edition features shared quadruple
bills in both San Francisco and Los Angeles (at LA Theatre Center) during the
month of September.
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| FACT/SF's Michaela Burns Photo Kegan Marling |
All four of the works on
the San Francisco program at ODC Theater were premieres, two world premieres
from FACT/SF and two San Francisco premieres by LACDC. In the first and third
pieces of the evening - an(n)a.07, a
solo choreographed and danced by Slender-White, and excerpts from Carson’s Stimulaze – the relationship between music
and movement was paramount. As the lights slowly rose on an(n)a.07, J.S. Bach’s complex contrapuntal sound penetrated the
space. Slender-White began a short movement motif, which eventually grew and
developed, accumulating more and more intricate phrase material. There were
moments of charged stillness, coupled with intensely strong technical positions
(a deep lunge in fourth position) and living postures, including a phenomenal
grand plié, also in fourth. Bach’s fugues and inventions have certain
structural elements present – a subject, sometimes referred to as the theme,
answers and countersubjects – all of which are woven together to create one
large, cohesive compositional statement. In an(n)a.07,
a title which aptly includes the name of Bach’s wife, Slender-White was
brilliantly demonstrating how present-day live choreographic material can act
as one of these structural elements - a relevant, contributing independent/interdependent
voice, conversing in real-time with a score composed hundreds of years prior.
Carson’s quartet, Stimulaze, also began with the music of
the Baroque master, J.S. Bach, and again, we witnessed an artistic back and
forth, though here it was between four dancers performing different strands of movement.
In Carson’s theatrical container, the quartet overlapped and intersected, and
while each choreographic idea was distinct, all shared an incredible fluidity
and legato intention. Very much like the score. Then things shifted. The four
dancers began purposely bumping shoulders, pulling and pushing each other
backward and forward in space. And the music morphed as well, this time into work
by W.A. Mozart, a composer synonymous with 18th century classicism,
where music composition was very much about following specific rules, formulas
and formats. In this part of Stimulaze,
the choreography was acting against that structure. The dancers were playing a
game of will, exertion and control (and a humorous one at that), refusing to
‘stay in their lane’. Stimulaze’s juxtaposition
of movement working with the music and then conversely working in opposition to
it was extremely satisfying.
The remaining two works,
EBBA (LACDC) and Remains (FACT/SF) took the audience on a journey, a descent into
the mysterious land of the deconstructed narrative. Neither told a linear
story, but both were very clearly steeped in and inspired by the human
condition.
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| LACDC's Drea Sobke and Ashlee Merritt in EBBA Photo Taso Papadakis |
A pounding, vibrating
bass line shook the entire theater as the LACDC dance artists entered one by
one from opposites sides of the stage for EBBA.
They toggled between stretchy, undulating slow motion positions and quick,
traveling, transitional steps. An animalistic-like growl was layered into the
score, similarly mirrored in many of the choreographic postures. Forceful
dynamic changes and jazz-based phrase material leapt from the stage, the movement
creating an atmospheric sense of purposeful uncertainty and insecurity. And
there was a very clear extreme being explored – that of the individual and the
collective. At the beginning of the piece, it felt like each dancer in the
eight-member female ensemble was navigating their surroundings on their own. Inhabiting
the same space as others, but not with any kind of kinship. As EBBA progressed, this isolation and
lone-ness was replaced by a sense of the group, of the collective. Speaking of
the group, the LACDC company dancers had excellent spatial awareness, able to
be completely in the moment, fully committed to the movement with no collisions.
And they were able to do so without making the ODC stage look crowded. The only
challenge in the piece was the score, or more specifically the booming bass
pulse in the score. It might have just been the size of the theater, but
everything was shaking pretty intensely for almost the entire dance, and it did
distract a little from what was happening visually.
Six FACT/SF company
dancers made their way to the stage, each carrying a plastic 3D shell mannequin
figure of themselves. Once these shells had been distributed around the space,
the ensemble made their way to upstage right to begin Remains’ first movement phrase – a choreographic expression of
sweeping arms and legs told along a circuitous path. As they arrived in place,
the mood radically changed. Slow contorted motions and screeching vocal sounds
unfolded; the theme of anguish ringing clear. Structurally, Remains channeled repetition and
accumulation devices, with highly physical motifs overlaying each other. And
for a good portion of the work, the cast faced the back of the stage. This
facing brought egalitarianism into the picture – the dancers could have been
anyone. Mid-way through Remains, the
performers squirmed on the floor trying desperately to make it to a seated
position on a chair. Once they finally accomplished this task, they violently
fell to the floor with percussive and rhythmic full body physicality. And they
would try again, make it, and then lose once more; succeeding and falling,
succeeding and falling, succeeding and falling. This was interspersed with a
clock-like shaking of the head, in a ‘no’ attitude. The shells would come back
toward the end of the dance, in a nurturing, protective sequence, complete with
LED lights that were breathed into the structures. But for me, it was the chair
sequence that felt the essence of Remains.
The continual up and down signaling the never-ending, relentless cycle of human
emotion and the blindsiding power of grief and angst.
