Frances Smith Cohen

Addio

Choreographer: Frances Smith Cohen
Dancer: Nicole Olson

Not surprisingly, there could be no more fitting tribute to Frances Cohen than one she designed herself. Addio, a program she originally created to observe the passing of her husband, came full circle when Nicole Olson reprised the piece to commemorate Fran. Olson delivered a profound, nuanced performance that mined the depths of grief and loss. As Fran had given, so she received, in a work so achingly beautiful it moved me to tears.

A long, low bench, the single prop on stage, was intermittently in service to the full range of emotions expressed in the piece. It was the physical anchor for the opening that found the soloist sitting in sorrowful contemplation. At one point it became a means of elevation, seemingly to bring her supplications closer to heaven – with obvious futility. She may as well have been scanning the horizon for a ship that would never return. We were witnessing despair confounded by a desperate hope that would not be repressed until, finally, there was only surrender and submission to mortality, with the dancer prostrate on the bench, the loss tangible and utterly final.

The range of emotion expressed in this telling was little short of profound. It went from a dazed internal silence to confronting heaven with an inchoate rage. In the midst of this maelstrom, and in spite of it, there was a recurring motif as the dancer’s fingers made a distinct walking motion almost independent of the body – first on the bench, then on the floor, then in the air. This tiny motion was arresting in its contrast to the larger, almost convulsive gestures that defined the dance, and while we could not ignore it, we could only speculate as to its meaning. For surely there was meaning here, if only for its specificity. I prefer to think that it was an indication that grief is not all thunderstorms and wailing, but that life, without our knowledge or direction, goes on in many small, unintended ways.

Whatever its intention, it was only the most obvious of many nuances that added so much depth and dimension to this amazing work by, and now for, Fran Cohen. It was interpreted and performed with great authenticity by Nicole Olson – who surrendered herself to the body expressive, giving a physical presence to emotions whose weight simply could not be borne by words.

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