By Naomi Brand
Dancer’s Studio West productions of Dance Explosions 2009 has come and gone marking another year of growth for the artists of Calgary’s dance community. On each of the three weekends I sat in the theatre on those familiar grey chairs, program in my lap and as the house lights dimmed I am reminded of that state of welcomed anticipation, not knowing what I am about to experience, how it will touch me and which senses it might affect. Over the course of the festival a great multitude of images, movements and rhythms took place on the stage before me. Each choreographer attempting through a myriad of ways to do essentially the same thing: affect me. And if there was something that characterizes this years Explosions for me it was just that, the way that each choreographer appealed to different strategies of the senses to communicate their work.
The festival kicked off with the grandiose visual work of Rosanna Terraciano. Bata was a feast for the eyes. The lights came up on a massive structure of white cloth draping down across the stage from the corners and a woman lying in this silky web, dressed in the fabric of the structure. The striking set design drew me into a context full of tension between space, fabric and the dancers movement. As the dancer moved the stage space moved with her revealing the function of the fabric as both a trap and an embrace. The scale of the cloth made Terraciano look small in comparison to her world, but also powerful as every gesture of her movement was visually amplified by the rippling waves that echoed through the fabric.
Contrast this with the opening of the second week’s Believe the Hype/Chameleon/Everything’s Always Better In The End and we shift from visual to sound. Danny Nielsen’s tap and bass guitar duet showed the dancing body as music maker. The language of rhythm rang crystal clear through every inch of him. His incredibly articulate rhythms permeated my skin and resonated in my chest. When his big crescendo of movement, and sound petered off it left a vibration in the room that was palpable and electric. The energy hung in the air and in all of our bodies warming up the theatre perfectly for the rest of the evening to follow: alive, awakened and energized.
I appreciated Nicole Mion’s 18 Frames for the way that it addressed the question of what is seen and what is felt when we’re watching dance. The piece, based on an exploration of electricity, made visible a bodily experience of something typically unseen by the eye. It made the audience aware of the world happening beneath the dancers skin and the current of energy moving through her limbs (something that we’re always watching when we watch movement, but explicit in this work). The vibrating, buzzing, electric state of the soloist’s skin made my own nervous system twitch in sympathy.
Among the many solo works in the festival Hilary Maxwell’s work Thessalonike stood out for me for the way that it let us connect to a person. The solo danced by Jennifer Jaspar used a swirling, spiraling vocabulary to give the sense of the personal story of a woman of the water. The piece opened with Jaspar’s exposed back to us, her limbs folded and angular. Her hand reached behind her to touch her own shoulder with the delicacy of an intimate gesture. This personal opening image established the importance of Jaspar’s inner world to the work. With her face hidden from the audience for most of the work Maxwell guides the audience to watch her just being her.
Michele Moss’s work had a similar sense of personal story. While the heartfelt music and solo female dancer in a pretty dress is a form somewhat familiar it also carries a truth that is still relevant after so many permutations. The simple fact that we dance out of joy and pain and out of the facts of our lives still hits home. Moss’s seeking grace; she dances with her arms overhead elicited images of hundreds of dances living inside our bodies waiting to come out. The snippets of sensual rhythms held inside the body that escaped over the course of the dance, produced suspense, anticipation and a captivating tension for me. The strength of the work is that Moss never really let it all out. Instead the dance leaked and at times overflowed from dancer Deanne Walsh exquisitely. Watching the tangle of bliss and angst unfold was all the more satisfying.
Other pieces during the festival found another way in to my body: by appealing to human emotion. Kelly McCann’s letgo falls into this category for me. By enlisting the help of baby shoes and childhood wind up toys as props, McCann drew from the nostalgia and sentiment associated with these personal and recognizable objects. The piece contrasted the innocence of childhood images with dark, aggressive ones. For example, when a crowd of performers surrounded the soloist, yelling at her as she struggled to fit the tiny shoes onto her feet. The disparity of these emotional extremes left a barren feeling in the space and an ache in the pit of my stomach. Despite the dark and at time desperate movement, the work left a sense of stark beauty.
W&M Physical Theatre are the experts on stark beauty. Their excerpt of Bone Songs: The Return, which closed the festival on Saturday night was layered with poetic and austere images. The highly visual aspect of the work was matched by the authenticity of their physicality. Their performance called us to attention with its clarity and dynamic. The duet moved through a dance vocabulary characterized by dramatic shifts in energy states. W&M struck the balance between design and physicality that we often search for as choreographers, offering up work that can be felt with all of the senses.
It’s this kind of “feeling” that makes for good dance watching; those moments when you realize that you are moving along with the movement or that your head has tilted as you watch, your pulse has quickened or your insides have warmed. That is communicating through the body and the unique power of dance. The three weeks and nineteen pieces in this season’s Dance Explosions reminded me that there are as many dances out there as there are possibilities available through dance to touch and affect an audience.
