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Flash Review 1, 1-8:
Gordon's Pure Dance
No Cynicism or Pedestrian Movement Here
By Susan Yung
Copyright 2001 Susan Yung
It is a nearly inconceivable
truth that David Gordon has been making dances for about 40 years.
The truly amazing thing is that his recent premieres, as seen at
Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church Friday, are fresh by any standard,
without resorting to shock tactics or cynicism. And if you expect
choreography by Gordon, a charter member of the Judson Church movement,
to be banal and pedestrian, you'd be wrong. It is visceral, technically
challenging, immensely pleasing dance/theater executed by performers
equal to the task.
In "For the Love of Rehearsal"
(2000) performed to Bach's "Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello,"
Gordon essentially suspended the disbelief of theproscenium, permitting
onstage to be used as offstage. The stage manager (Ed Fitzgerald)
sat with his board well in sight of the viewer, just off of the
stage; the lighting (by Phil Sandstrom) resembled a general purpose
scheme, with the house lights up. And while Gordon performed in
a few acts, most of the time he observed the performance while leaning
against a column upstage, but just offstage. (I want to personally
thank him for putting the performers -- and the stage manager --
in team t-shirts imprinted with each person's name, which each one
wore at least briefly.)
The dancers designate
section changes not by entering and exiting, but by simply stopping,
relaxing into a normal posture, or discarding a piece of their rehearsal
clothing. The movement felt influenced by folk or social dancing
-- a little Mediterranean line dancing, a little flamenco -- but
comported itself with the strong structure of ballet. It was precise
and yet loose, advancing and stopping, and infectiously musical,
notably so in a section where the group clasped hands and danced
in rhythmic unison. Karen Graham's mental and physical intelligence
was impressive, as was Tadej Brdnik's refined brusqueness. Christopher
Morgan's lithesome limbs eloquently displayed each line. ("For the
Love of Rehearsal" will be danced by the White Oak Dance Project
at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in June.)
FAMILY$DEATH@ART.COMedy,
(which amusingly is turned into a link by Word when it's typed)
alternates spoken scenes with dances. David Gordon and Valda Setterfield
join the cast, which also included Scott Cunningham, Tricia Brouk,
and Krista Miller. The dialogue touched on familiar domestic issues,
and the dancing underscored a physical way of relating that can
at times be more instinctive and direct (and true) than thoughts
turned into words. Gordon mixed common movements (walking; forward
and backward running with stops and starts; and spinning) with more
designed phrasing that included folk dancing, lunges, arabesques,
and interesting quadrant work in fourth position. Gordon and Setterfield
performed a section which had them getting into and out of embraces;
their finale -- a "long walk" downstage -- seemed the only way to
end the program despite its loaded poignancy. The music was composed
by Wim Mertens, Conlon Nancarrow, John Cage, and Michael Nyman,
and tended toward a dramaticism that injected an emotional urgency
into small matters of domestic life.
FAMILY$DEATH@ART.COMedy
repeats this Friday through Sunday. For more information, please
visit the Danspace Project web page
on our site.
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