Dance in 2004:A New Populism Born out of Collaboration
By L.P. Streitfeld
Inventions in Narrative: Stephen Petronio Company
The most celebrated collaborator in the dance world continues to be Stephen Petronio, who ended his national tour at the Joyce Theater on March 28. In his 20th anniversary season, Petronio continues to risk collaborations that build groundbreaking narrative into his forceful signature movement. The program illuminated a dark urban view of disintegrating social structures in which men are more vulnerable than ever to the duality of the dark feminine.
At the root of the Petronio dance language is sexual equality, reinforced this season by his collaborations with the downtown couple, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. Fashion provacateur Tara Subkoff, of Imitation of Christ fame, is now key to the Petronio process of integrating the gender opposites. Her dualistic, individualistic approach to costuming facilitates choreography that builds dualism in character feeding the narrative build of a performance, thereby freeing dance as a medium from the constriction of patriarchal archetypes.
A gothic nursery rhyme set to a combination of music and text by Lou Reed, The Island of Misfit Toys was imbedded with dualism born out of collaborations with artists intent on exploring the dark side of human nature. Cindy Sherman’s grotesquely contorted sculpted dolls and totem set the stage for the sinister edge of pedophilia underlying the work, which opened with a re-imagining of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven read by Willem Defoe. Female dancers costumed by Subkoff in deconstructed baby doll dresses that showed their underwear provided a visual metaphor for the theme — the rape of innocence born out of personal entanglements and sexual confusions.
Scored by Laurie Anderson, City of Twist depicted men, in various states of undress, frightened off by erotically unbound women in gothic cheerleader costumes. Yet, there was something entirely new taking place in the transformation of a male dancer who performed in his underwear before the crescent moon and afterwards connected to a woman partner in a manner that honored and respected the power. Completing the narrative was the restricted movement of an uptight conventional male — costumed in a preppie sweater with tails hanging over his underwear –that failed to make the connection with his female dance partner. The message here referred back to the tumultuous Petronio performance in Broken Man: turning inward is the only release from the prison of disparate urbanity.
Inventions in Choreography: From Experimental Software to Classical Ballet
The ambitious New Dance Alliance Performance Mix Festival, running from March 23-28 at the Joyce SoHo, presented bold new inventions at the cutting edge where language is concerned more broadly about the populist body. Director Karen Bernard succeeded in putting together a large variety of works that demonstrated a new innocence in self-exposure, incorporating a wide range of emotions without falling into sentimentality.
During a pre-performance installation, an international duo utilized innovative technology to create MO-DE, an interactive dance performance composed in real time with computer generated music. Compagnia Ariella Vidach/A.i.E.P from Lugano/Milano brought choreography to the edge of the cutting edge where video cameras translate color into sound by way of Riccardo Mazza’s interactive audio design AUXY. In their U.S. premiere, Ariella Vidach composed choreography in real time through alternating her color costume against Claudio Prati’s set design of her image on a projected computer screen.
Naomi Goldberg combined her choreography and teaching in a unique performance that imparted a message about the essential nature of movement in a moribund culture. Inspired to take her class of geriatric students to the stage, Goldberg incorporated both movement and its limitation in a narrative that closed with audience participation. The risky combination was jolting but refreshingly authentic in its appeal to broaden both the language and audience for dance.
At the other end of the spectrum, the invention of a populist dance language delighted new audiences when Connecticut Ballet premiered the stylish, witty Pigs & Pachyderms at the Dicapo Opera Theatre in New York City. Director Brett Raphael poked gentle fun at the elitism of classical ballet while dressing tradition up in spanking new clothes and populist body language in a cross-disciplinary feat. This unique collaborative approach drew on traditional themes of transformation in children’s stories to create bold new forms by way of a neo-modernist fusion of dance with opera, musical comedy and visual arts.
