If you braved the downtown streets once darkness fell and made
it to the TheatreROCS stage at Xerox Auditorium Thursday
night, you were rewarded with the brightly lit performance of Mariah Maloney
Dance. (Sidebar: Why did I not spot a single police person, on foot or in car,
anywhere in the vicinity to grant Fringe-goers a tad of security in an area
largely deserted at night?).
Light plays a large role in Mariah Maloney’s memories,
showcased in the premiere of her multilayered piece “Light,” one of three pieces
her company performed to a not-large audience on the first night of the 2013 First
Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival. The work is based, in part, on Maloney’s
recollections of a dance with sparklers that her father performed for her and
her twin sister when they were just 2 years old and living through an Alaskan
winter in a homesteader cabin without electricity. Inspiration for the piece
also came from a dance that the post-modern choreographer Trisha Brown created
for Maloney and fellow dancer Diane Madden in 1999 in response to an image
proposed by artist Robert Rauschenberg involving Brown dancing with a sparkler
coming out of her head.
In any case, light is central to Maloney’s piece. It begins
with a single, white nightgown-clad dancer (Lara Nixon, performing her own
choreography) standing with her back to the audience in silent contemplation
before flitting back and forth across a string of white lights leading up to a
standing oval mirror. Pretty, but lacking in real impact for me. This progressed
to a fluttering core of young women leaping and twirling in white night clothes
with high-powered, insect-like energy; then to a section in which light
fixtures were attached to a trio of dancers’ arms (audaciously performed by Nixon,
Hannah Seidel, and Aya Wilson) creating a bewitching
aura. The longish piece concluded with Maloney’s solo in an LED light suit and
featured slow, sustained movements that showcase her ability to hit and sustain
difficult poses. However, I thought the costume too much the focal point; it
detracted attention from the power of Maloney’s fluid performance.
Hannah Seidel shone in “Space Pixilation,” a piece Maloney
choreographed in 2012 in dialogue with Seidel. This piece was full of beautiful
extensions and strong holds which then undid themselves in frantic impulses
which coursed like electricity through Seidel’s muscular body. Her super-fast
spins seemed to actually leave trails.
The company performs
again Sunday, September 22, at 6:30 p.m. at TheatreROCS
Stage at Xerox Auditorium. Tickets are $12.
The Fringe is all about discovering artists and performers. Well,
I hit the jackpot with the first show I took in at this year’s festival: “The
Goldilocks Score and Other Dances” by Red Dirt Dance, led by Karl Rogers. Wow.
Talk about stage presence. Watch out, Darren Stevenson of PUSH Physical Theatre!
This guy rivals you in charisma and audience-directed, humorous dialogue. And
his sense of timing is spot-on.
I guess PUSH, a group I really admire, came to mind because,
like PUSH, Red Dirt Dance seems to skirt the fence between dance and theater. I
would call it Dance Theatre, because some of the pieces involve extensive
dialogue, use of props, and almost a plotline. Plus, Roger’s expressions are as
informing as his movements.
I’ll skip right to the chase: “The Goldilocks Score” has
only one other showing at this year’s Fringe, Friday, September 20, at 6 p.m.
at Geva Theatre Nextstage. Go
see it. All four of the pieces have merit; the one that moved me the most was “just
knot enough,” a solo by Rogers in which he begins by
walking to the stage through the audience, pausing to address it in plaintive
banter, expounding on the awkwardness of the situation. I immediately liked
him. I immediately smiled.
And it only gets better. The audience bears witness to a
tragic-comedic situation in which a voice-over basically informs both the
audience and Rogers that because he is so perfect, the relationship is doomed. Over.
“You’re like a Christ figure. Everything you do is perfect,”
the voice intoned. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t measure up to that… I’m
not perfect and I’m not in love with you anymore.”
Who hasn’t been there in some way, shape, or form?
Roger’s movements affixed his state-of-mind in space and
time. He churned through the air, clenched his fist and arms to his side as he
lowered himself into a flat-back, 90 degree pose, and repeatedly flicked his
hands rapidly outwards as if he were throwing something away. We felt for him.
Likewise, “The Goldilocks Score,” performed by Rogers and
Paul Matteson, seems to address borders and boundaries between people. The two
experimented with numerous holds, lifts, leaps, and other trust-defining
movements that made physical for me the trust and emotional danger implicit in
any relationship. Especially effective was the section in which Matteson ran
full-out and leapt at Rogers, who caught him but stumbled backward under the
weight and impact. And then he instructed Matteson to do it again. What a
powerful metaphor.
The third dancer, Tristan Koepke,
presented beautifully in the first piece, “We Too Cling,” but his movements
didn’t affect me as viscerally as did Rogers and Matteson. He was almost too
perfect. It was a role he was asked to play, I’m guessing, but I wanted to
glimpse something more, something deeper.
And kudos to The Department of Dance at SUNY
Brockport, by the way. Rogers and Maloney both currently teach there.
“The Goldilocks score
and Other Dances” also takes place Friday, September 20, 6 p.m. at Geva Theatre Nextstage. Tickets
cost $16.
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2013.
