2008 Woodie Awards
All that kickin' and jumpin' means somethin'
They may be barefoot, but as an art, modern dance is legit
Whitney Medved
Issue date: 10/10/06 Section: Detour
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When I was younger, my experience with dance ended after the more-or-less annual tradition of attending the Nutcracker Ballet with my family, much to my older brother's chagrin. While I would call my attention span at the time less than ideal (I was usually praying for it to be over by the time they all run out of that lady's dress-tights were itchy and bedtime had come and gone…) I was nevertheless able to gather the beauty of ballet. I could follow the plot, but who can't it's the freakin' Nutcracker…
Complete with elaborate be-jeweled costumes (ex. giant faux rat heads that scream "Hi, I'm a bad guy, and also an animal"…), clearly defined movements, and a general run-down commentary in the program, it would be pretty difficult to miss the point.
Modern dance does not play by the same rules. There are costumes, but they consist of loosely fitting gaucho pants or simple halter tops that accentuate the solidly sculpted shoulders and backs of the dancers. The movements are without a doubt clearly defined in terms of physical motion, but the meaning behind them seems to evade the casual observer, and just forget about any sort of supplemental reader in the program with which to follow plot.
The experience was unlike any I'd ever had before, the show opened with a piece called "Evolute." The stage lights came up in a deep, glowing blue, and a free-formed mollusk-like structure sat in the center of the stage with the silhouette of a dancer hanging from it by the waist. As the dance commenced she wriggled and ungulate her way out of, off of, and eventually back into the structure, alternating with other dancers. The way they fluidly slid up onto the bars, used each other to navigate them, etc. was mind-blowing. At the end of the piece most of the dancers ungulated off the stage, their worm-like spinal columns seemed to consist of free-flowing water rather than solid matter restricted by the laws of physics.
In "Urban Primates," the dancers, clad in various cuts of black spandex, adequately channeled our distant relatives as they shuffled across the stage low enough to make any basketball player cringe, or sat perched on their haunches as their heads craned around like a curious chimp. In "Beat Sequitur," music accompaniment consisted of a local beat-boxer who meddled with Asian influenced music as he helped the dancers "expose the different time signatures and cultural rhythmic components being explored."
One of my favorites may have been "Finding the Morning," though I seemed to find myself saying that after every dance. I think I favor it because of the way it made me feel. I said before that it is important to "show, not tell," and even though I didn't read or hear a single sentence-or word even-about the content of the piece, the stories these phenomenal dancers were showing me with their bodies evoked a powerful emotional response in me.
Every movement matters; every arm swing, every clap, even the act of sitting on the floor while others continue to dance is symbolic of something. The time and manner in which the dancers physically interact is important as well. There is a reason for coming into an embrace before explosively separating from one another only to embrace once again, and for the tangled jumble of limbs gracefully weaving and unweaving in time to music. Tiny women (as blatantly ripped as they were) were supporting the weight of stacked men with no apparent signs of added duress- It was the craziest thing I've seen in a while.
I consider myself a novice viewer, it was a job in itself to try and absorb all the movement, let alone interpret it.I still don't get it. nor for a moment do I feel like I gleaned even half of the meaning out of the show . My analysis of the piece is superficial at best, but I feel like it's a start. I feel like just being aware of Modern, and the fact that it is an Art has broadened my perception of and appreciation for all those people, even around this campus, that spend countless hours getting their bodies to do things that seem to have no rhyme or reason.
There are so many ways to tell a story, of which verbally is only one. Sometimes there are no words though, and what a better way to communicate through this language barrier that to do it-to show it-with the incredibly expressive instrument of the human body.