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Review 2, 1-21: Cornered
Green & Wright Meet in the 'Interim'
By Chris Dohse
Copyright 2003 Chris Dohse
NEW YORK -- Allyson
Green and Ben Wright's collaborative duet "Interim," seen Thursday
at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, begins with chiaroscuro
and stillness. Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" tinkles in a gradually
brightening dusk. Green and Wright sit inert in chairs at opposite
corners of the dancing area, facing each other. The sound and casual
physicality are as familiar and as comfortable as old shoes while
Green slowly, slowly surveys the space between the two bodies. Her
inexorable pace establishes the scale and shape in which the piece
will occur -- the scale and shape of need.
These dancers are authentic
people. They dance a troubled emotional partnership based on fluid
counterbalances and weight exchanges with humility, allowing the
movement to take as long as it needs. The crickets in Alan Stones's
sound design suggest summer and fertility as Green and Wright nudge
each other from paused sculptural tableaux. Perhaps this movement
has evolved from improvisation, but it now fills its contours with
sensitivity, domestic intimacy and complementary timing.
As the characters' connection
deepens, their agitation grows into an organic and essential human
relational truth. Sarah Gilmartin lights the space beautifully,
the edges of her green square enhancing the color of Wright's shirt.
There's something heartbreaking about the piece's simplicity, something
sepia-toned that captures inconstancy. Suddenly the sound of waves
crashing on a shore is nearly unbearable.
Wright dances while
Green looks on, impassive, aloof or numbed. He seems to need to
communicate something to her. Maybe he's struggling to remember
something or he's atoning for wrongdoing. Without overt connotation
or literal interpretation, his gestures carry specificity and meaning.
Time passes, marked by the sound of rain falling. She gets a chance
to rebut him in an ensuing solo. She's no longer aloof, but present.
Her body falls open as she shakes off her pallor.
A sort of coda, repeated
duet material to Jan Peerce's 1945 recording of "Bluebird of Happiness,"
is imbued with irony. These two certainly aren't living a life of
smiles, but touch each other with an old-fashioned, omnipresent
ache before returning to their original corners like tired prizefighters.
They'd surely do it all again.
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