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Flash Review 2, 2-26:
"I Want My NDT"
Rioting for Nederlands in Berkeley
By Christine Chen
Copyright 2001 Christine Chen
BERKELEY -- Nederlands
Dans Theater returned to the Bay Area this week for the first time
in over 20 years and gratified the Berkeley audience with the technical
virtuosity of its dancers and the accessibility of its program.
The second of two programs, presented by Cal Performances at Zellerbach
Theater Friday and Saturday, featured Jiri Kylian's "No More Play,"
"Petite Mort," and "Bella Figura" along with a work from Paul Lightfoot's
oeuvre, "Start to Finish." Though he recently relinquished his position
as NDT's artistic director, Kylian's artistic impact and presence
still looms strong -- his highly specific, duet-laden choreography
dominated the program, and the company of dancers seemed as finely
tuned as ever.
A heavy downpour, a Cal
basketball game, and a relatively on-time curtain at Zellerbach
combined forces to set me off on the wrong foot in my viewing of
the show. After scouring the campus area for parking, I eventually
realized that basketball fans had filled up every parking space
and every lot within a one-mile radius. I finally found a space
many blocks away, and my friends and I ran through the deluge and
arrived at the theater at around 8:10 p.m. (for an 8 p.m. curtain)
dripping wet. At the door we were told that we would not be admitted
to the theater until intermission and would therefore miss the first
two pieces, but that we were welcome to watch the show (without
sound) on the video monitor in the lobby. I tried to play my "but
I'm press...can't I at least sneak in after the first piece?" trump
card, but to no avail. At this point there were at least 30 others
who shared our predicament and who had crowded in front of the 12-inch
screen. By about 8:20 PM, a congregation of about 100 latecomers
had amassed, and, as they had paid between $32 and $52 a pop, they
were getting MAD! Feeding off of the energy of the group and the
growing collective mentality that they were being wronged, individuals
grew more confident and brash and started to lash out. Some yelled
at the helpless ushers, others asked to speak to someone in authority,
many demanded refunds, a few tried to silence those who were making
a fuss, and I watched the scene with disbelief and amusement. No
one seemed to be watching the video screen anymore. One woman who
actually arrived early but left the theater to go to the bathroom
was not let back in and was particularly outrageous and irate ("I
have f***ing diarrhea...! This is not right.... This is not right!").
Eventually the angry mob proved too much (old school activism works
well in this town, as Berkeley-ites are not above fighting down
and dirty until they get their way), and we were allowed to enter
into the standing room section during the pause between the first
two pieces. Above the din and distraction of the rain and the crowd,
I managed a few glances at "No More Play" in which I was able to
discern several duets and a sense of Kylian's structural use and
manipulation of the space through lighting. The lights often delineated
and isolated triangular or rectangular sections of space within
which a male/female couple partnered in a sensual but rigorously
balletic movement style.
Standing sardine-style
in the back of the theater with the other smugly self-satisfied
yet still discontented latecomers, I strained to watch the 1991
"Petite Mort," which began without pause after the 1988 "No More
Play." The title is a euphemism for "orgasm" in French, and the
dance, like the play on words in the language, centers around ideas
of sex and death. The piece begins with an evenly-spaced group of
men waving around their fencing foils, then rushing from upstage
to downstage and back with a huge silky piece of fabric which billows
over the stage. They return to their positions and continue to whip
their swords around, but this time they have a female partner to
negotiate with as well. As with the first piece, there is a lot
of heterosexual duet work, high extensions, swoopy lifts and meticulously
placed "M" and "W" arms. ("M" = hunch over, fly arms out like a
bird and curve. "W"= extend arms with palms up, bend elbows to 120
degrees and flip palms to 90 degrees.) Set to the highly refined
and familiar Mozart piano concertos, the piece also provides a critical
look at several repressive symbols of European culture. At one point,
a group of women scurries in wearing ridiculously enormous ball
gowns. They swoop around the space without appearing to move at
all, their gently content faces gliding above their elaborate, fixed
dresses. The punchline comes when they step away slightly from the
dresses to reveal that their rigid costume is indeed a separate,
stand-alone (literally) entity. The women dance with and around
their gowns, embracing them, ducking behind them and wheeling them
around. To sum up: The men have their virile swords, the women are
saddled with their confining dresses, and men and women dance together
in passionate duets. One recurring (sexual?) image: Man with "M"
arms hunched over woman on her back with "W" arms. The piece was
lovely to watch for the flawlessly executed dancing, the flashes
of cleverness and satire, and the production values of the fabric
and the dresses, but seemed a bit sterile and, perhaps because of
the lighting and costumes, overly beige (blech).
The next (and only non-Kylian)
piece on the program was Lightfoot's 1996 "Start to Finish." While
not a Kylian piece, it contained many of the same elements: the
safe humor (guy falls off the stage, watches TV), the manipulation
of production elements (a light boom hovers a mere 6 feet above
the stage, flashing arrows point to the action), the movement (clean
and seamless), the endless partnering, the lighting and costume
choices, and the (hetero)sexuality and nudity. Lightfoot draws the
action into the theater realm a bit more than Kylian, however, and
his movement style is also little more abandoned and thrown. His
characters fall into and out of line symbolically and literally
as they are allowed brief moments of individuality in solos amidst
the deluge of duets. With music ranging from Purcell to The Cranberries
and from Handel to live drumming, the action is purposely disjointed
and oddly fascinating -- but goes on a little too long.
"Bella Figura" contained
some of the more poignant images of the evening. Kylian's premise
in this dance created in 1995 was basically to question the different
aspects of performance and the performance space. What is performance?
When does a performance start? When does it end? Can you perform
a rehearsal? How do the stage/curtains/lighting define the performance
space? What are costumes and how do they define who we are? Where
does life end and art begin? Typical modernist questions more relevant
in the '60s, but Kylian pulls off a few engaging moments nonetheless.
The curtain rises while
the house lights are still on and we see the dancers warming up
(ugh, cliche alert!). Slowly they transition from rehearsal to performance
mode. Swatches of curtain rise and fall in stunning geometric patterns
systematically revealing and veiling different parts of the action:
A dancer is enveloped in the black fabric of the curtain and writhes
as her partner accompanies and lifts her from behind the curtain;
several strips of curtain descend, leaving a small square opening
where a couple dances; dancers line up side by side downstage and
the curtain is lowered into their arms. Men and women appear topless
in the same long crimson red skirts. The action occurs primarily
in duet form and the quality is mostly fluid and graceful with the
occasional accent. A much needed change of pace occurs in the Vivaldi
section, where the movement quality and overall energy changes from
a continuous, controlled bound flow to a more quick and quirky movement
style. After awhile the music ends (symbolic flames burn stage right
and stage left) and the dancers keep dancing. They eventually stop
and walk off stage. Black out. The performers were at once perfectly
technical and fully committed to the movement. Their phrasing was
commendable, and still, the sameness of it all lulled me into a
glazed state.
Overall, the dancing
was inarguably sublime, but the evening seemed long and repetitive,
even with my late arrival and the entertaining episode in the lobby.
The numerous duets began to blend together and the perfection of
the dancers started to become banal. The choreography relied heavily
on tried and true punchlines to manipulate the audience into nervous
laughter on cue ("Oh, that guy fell off the stage...I understand,
that's supposed to be funny, ha ha") and never really challenged
us to look at much more than the beautiful bodies in space. Even
so, much of the packed Zellerbach audience was roused to its feet,
and NDT enjoyed many (many!) curtain calls.
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