Fringe Festival Day 3 and a full bill of dance and theater
for me: Garth Fagan Dance, FuturePointe Dance and
PUSH Physical Theatre. Three hard-hitting local biggies.
Each so much its own entity that seeing them all in one evening was like
reading three good novels back to back to back. How can you digest each fully?
Still, juxtaposition can contribute to keener distillation of observation.
After seeing Garth Fagan Dance perform I caught FuturPointe’s“Psychopomp & Pageantry” at Geva’sNextstage. There are direct connections between the
companies; Guy Thorne, co-founder of FuturePointe,
and Heather Roffe, one of its three directors, both
had their stints dancing with Fagan. I found myself forgoing note taking at “Psychopomp,” laughing aloud in delight, tapping my foot,
totally immersed in the performance. I realized I was in for a treat when the
dancers began moving to the distinctive strains of They Might Be Giants’
“Istanbul (Not Constantinople).” This was going to be FUN.
Roffe is an accomplished
choreographer, and her piece “Byzantium” flooded the stage with upbeat, sultry
moves that kept the good-sized audience rapt in attention. The dancers wore a
variety of bright paisley and African-patterned costumes, the men bare-chested.
I wasn’t complaining.
Voice-overs, video, and even a magician of sorts, Nickle Van Wormer (he’s dubbed a “mentalist” in the program;
nice), contributed to a smorgasbord of sensations. It was difficult to decide
whether to focus on Van Wormer supposedly sawing through a woman in his magic
box or to remain intent on the dancers. In any case, I enjoyed being immersed
in all of it.
Much of the dancing had a very primal, driving energy. This
was especially true of the duet between Thorne and his wife and fellow
co-founder, N’Jelle Gage, in “Kwekwe,”
choreographed by Dr. L’Antoinette Stine, a mentor of
the two. Thorne was clad in only a shimmery loincloth; you could see all the
muscles working in his highly-defined torso. Gage wore a thin beige bodysuit,
showcasing a body that possesses both a child-like slightness and the
sensuality of a strong, self-possessed woman.
Watching the couple move together is poetry. It’s so
intimate that you almost feel as if you should look away. Their bodies move
across each other on the ground like shadow moving across light, sliding
between shapes so fluidly that there are no transitions; they move
individually, but in spiritual unison. The piece’s name refers to a story in
which a star is in love with the sun. That explains the sharp, triangular
shapes Gage formed with her arms and legs during this highly erotic scene.
The image of Gage and Thorne together was, for me, rivaled
only by the hard-hitting “Midwife to the Dying,” in which apprentice Brittany
Lang comes to her fate in a ritualistic scene in which Liam Knighten
first dropped a transparent scarf across her face as she laid on a bench, then
secured it around her head. Lang then entangled herself in scarves and was
finally pulled by the women off stage in a somewhat disturbing sequence tinged
with a touch of hysterical movement and drumming that hit me in the gut with
its power. Wow.
PUSH Physical Theatre is always a crowd-pleaser, and Saturday afternoon’s performance was no
exception. The house at Kilbourn Hall was packed and
the audience rose to its feet in a wave at the end, a standing ovation that —
while the show was great — I’m not sure was fully merited. As
always, the production was entertaining, clever, highly skillful, and, at
times, hilarious. But it wasn’t the best performance I’ve ever seen the
troupe give.
I felt that the first piece, “Red Ball,” was the weakest of
all the PUSH offerings and I wondered why the group opened with it. There was
little movement; this one was definitely on the theater side of dance theater. It centered around a
glowing red orb of light and a tablet or laptop that would, for instance,
display a video of a company member’s startled face as it was held over their
real face which then “disappeared.” There was one magical moment in it for me,
during a touching scene in which Darren Stevenson — co-founder of the company
along with his wife, Heather Stevenson — playfully tried to catch the little
red light orb which had escaped, mischievously avoiding capture. Stevenson is a
brilliant mime and his theatrical presence is huge.
I love both “Grace” and “The Soldier (or A Child’s
Bedroom),” pieces that, for me, complement each other and were indeed performed
back-to-back. “Grace” features Heather Stevenson and is set to “Amazing Grace”
by Five Blind Boys of Alabama. Stevenson is airborne, carried aloft by four
male company members, for nearly the entire piece. The men transport her
worshipfully, alternatively propelling her upwards and restraining her from
over-reaching as she strives to attain something just beyond her grasp. Lovely and moving.
“The Soldier” tells a far different story. Darren Stevenson
is riveting as a child playing a soldier. He mimes aiming and firing a rifle,
lobbing a bomb, dropping to the ground for cover and so on. However, the
playing becomes more and more actualized until his mouth stretches open in a
silent agonized scream and his body recoils in slow motion from the force of
firing his weapon. Finally, he’s hit and, seemingly muscle by muscle, he
collapses, flails, twitches, and is still. I can’t imagine the research and practice
that went into that sequence of movements. He must have dissected it second by
second, like a series of projected images on film. I only wish my little boys
had been there to see the horror on his face, both as he killed and was killed.
“Parenthood” and PUSH’s recently premiered work “Job”
rounded out the program. If you have ever cared for an infant during the night,
“Parenthood” will have you clutching your stomach in laughter. It’s that good. “Job,”
on the other hand, is more serious stuff. The biblical story is transposed to a
modern office setting, but the suffering is just as intense. Speaking
of which, even with a broken toe, Ari Pryntz-Nadworny
excelled as the title character, the anguish and frustration in his expressions
and movements as apparent as if he had spoken lines of dialogue. He
performs on the cyr wheel for this piece — a huge,
heavy, steel ring which is propelled by the performer’s strength and weight,
usually from a spread-eagled position within the wheel. It does not look easy.
(PUSH performs again
Saturday 9/28 at 7 & 10 p.m. at Kilbourn Hall.
Tickets are $15.)
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2013.
