Snappy Dance

[magid]

Last night I went to see Snappy Dance at the BCA's Calderwood Pavilion.

There were five pieces in the first half of the show, while an experimental new piece was the entirety of the second half.

1. Four Fourths (2006)
   Four dancers, two men, two women, running across the stage, momentarily looking at the audience, slowly building to more movements that were more obviously dance-like. It felt fun, playing with movement. And when there were lifts or other pair-wise moves, it wasn't always two male-female pairs. Nor was it always the male doing the lifting, which was very cool.
   
2. Limning Twilight (1997)
   Spotlight on two dancers' legs, opening and closing with the music, the dancers completely bent over. This progressed into more wavy, sea-plant-like movements with the arms, and slowly, the dancers arms moved up, and eventually they danced standing, arms intertwining, making interesting patterns with arms and limbs. I really liked how ethereal it all felt.
   
3. Odd Egg Out (1997)
   Three dancers, the two men in mottled red body suits, the woman in a purple one. They start out all intertwined, slowly working their way apart. The two men dance their way into a happy dyad, while the woman tried to work her way in, slowly leaping into the middle of their hug, and so on. In the end, she is borne out, triumphant, by the two of them.
   
4. Au Lait (2006)
   This felt like a short bagatelle, a sleepy, pajama'd couple distracting each other in the quest for the best bits of the newspaper, performed to music by Billie Holliday.
   
5. LUMEN (2005)
   Longer than the others, and gorgeous, as six dancers not only danced but danced with light. Sometimes there was a spotlight in one place, only part of a movement visible; most of a body, but not all, the beginning and the end having to be inferred by what was seen. Sometimes there were lights shining across the stage in a band from left to right, so only a small strip of the stage was truly lit; people in front and behind that line were almost invisible to the audience. That was fascinating. Sometimes the light changed so the dancers were only silhouetted, and other times the stage was all lit, but with lower lights, or colored lights. And at the very end, an incredibly dramatic leap by all six dancers on a dark stage, perfectly timed with the strobe light to show just the apex of their leaps. Much of the time, all six dancers were on stage, frequently two pairs doing one thing while the other paid did something else. There were acrobatics (walking on people!), all sorts of interesting moves.
   
6. String Beings (2007; premiere)
   This piece is a collaboration between the artistic director and the dancers (as with many of the other pieces), and Jonathan Bachrach. Seven dancers, a violinist, and an electric guitarist all performing on stage, along with silhouette play and animation projected live through "intelligent video processing." Whatever kind of 'eye' it had picked up white clothing, so the performers were mostly in white accented with strings in one way or another.
   It's a very cool use of technology, having vague white figures dancing or having parts of people dancing together (the rest of the person covered in black). There were other uses that were more detailed, having echoes of what people have just danced appear, sometimes mirror reversed, sometimes multiple times. I thought the more literal figures more interesting than the larger vague ones, which seemed more a cross between white static and an albino Dynne, too fuzzy to be as interesting for something as precise as dance. The more detailed images made me think of a ghostly performance echoing the active one.
   On the left side of the stage was where there were lights and thin fabrics to play with shadows. This was less interesting to me, partly because I've seen that kind of thing before in some plays, partly because there was less actual dance, and partly because having a bright light shining into the audience is not comfortable to look at.
   The theme was string, and there were bits and vignettes that were very interesting, but as a whole, it still felt... in process. It wasn't as tight as it could have been, and it felt like it went on too long, while having too many disparate pieces. Perhaps it's my inadequacy as a knowledgeable audience member. I'm not sure. It's very neat, definitely, and very avante garde, and I could see how it could be used to greater effect, but this wasn't really it. Perhaps it was just having too many things going on in one piece (the animation and the silhouettes and the strolling/dancing musicians and some dance that was more obviously stories while other bits were more opaque (but still beautiful)) for my taste.
   
   I wish I had more knowledge/vocabulary for describing dance.