Yellow

I used to think that I would consider the dance performances that I saw, whether separately or presented together in an evening, and then select the best ones to review – all with no particular criteria to do so. Perhaps it has occasionally worked out that way, but experience over these last years has taught me that I don’t choose the programs. Rather, they choose me, and whether they are objectively the “best” or not is increasingly irrelevant. Somewhere between the ride home and the day after, I find a particular work taking up residence in my conscience like an obtrusive thought – sometimes invited, often not. Eventually, I become something very much like a homeowner looking out his window in the morning, only to find these presences all camped out on the lawn. Sometimes these are the shiny objects that I took home with me but others are less obvious. I can’t explain exactly why they are there and they don’t seem inclined to get up and leave anytime soon.

Reflection is a sort of grace that strips away the noise, that doesn’t care about the vagaries of attention or the fragility of memory but contents itself with exposing a few, isolated, compelling notes. It’s the swatches of watercolor brush strokes, drying, becoming permanently affixed even as the photograph that is their subject is dissolving, their colorful suggestions somehow more powerful than the crisp, original image. And so, my task is not to select, “what”, because that has somehow already been done, but to determine, “why”. Why this? Why these?

I have come to trust that creative work has a voice, and with patience, it will explain itself in a unique way that will resonate with me, the person who is, willingly or unwillingly, momentarily keeping it alive. And so, my singular purpose, my actual job, is to describe what that is, translate it into words. All at the risk that it will be trivial or so personal that it is meaningless for anyone else.

The recent production of Nicole Olson’s Yellow, a presentation of various artists’ works built loosely around the theme of a singular color, created something of a quandary for me. The evening did not start out or end well. I arrived tired from the day, frustrated at finding the venue, and late – too late to secure my preferred center-front seat, which began as a necessity for optimal viewing and has since become almost a fetish, so I had to look over someone’s head from the wings. It was a situation entirely of my doing, but as I sat down, Zen eluded me. Fast forward to the last performance of the evening. Nicole Olson’s Walls, which was accompanied by a continuous narration of the story, The Yellow Wallpaper, on which it was based. Despite my intense interest in how Olson was interpreting the subject matter, as the narrator’s voice washed over me, the long day asserted itself and I nodded off more than once – something I’ve never done before at a dance performance. I was deeply embarrassed, and afterward fled immediately to my vehicle where I laid back and closed my eyes for half an hour before driving home. I was shot, and wrote off any possibility of reviewing the evening since I wouldn’t be able to attend a second night to do it justice. Regretfully, and with just a tinge of shame, I dismissed the evening and moved on.

Or so I thought.

Apparently, my subconscious was not concerned about my physical circumstances or emotional response, or pride and kept replaying images from three of the evening’s performances. These were the same intrusive thoughts, unbidden but persistent, that I have attended to over the years, and which now demanded the same attention. And since ignoring them was futile, I was left with – why? Why these? In the end, it wasn’t all that mysterious. What was attracting me was a bright thread that ran through them, tying them to the same concept of minimalism which I frequently find fascinating. And though each approached it in a very unique way, those performances and that theme attached themselves to me and would not be released unless and until I thoroughly explored them in writing. I guess that makes this effort a matter of expiation or self-preservation. But I cannot not do it. And so….

Minimalism is very divisive. The distance between boring and fascinating is razor thin and I don’t want to get into the argument (“That’s stupid!”) (“No, YOU’RE stupid!”). Suffice it to say that I always want to be open to the possibility that, faced with extreme simplicity, there is really something more there, perhaps something important, even profound – or at least entertaining – if I just pay attention.

 

It Used To Be An Ocean

Choreography: Halley Willcox and dancers, Methods of Madness Dance Theater

Performers: Felix Cruz, Janessa Hill, James Lantz, Cody Pickens, Rayshawn Watkins, Rebecca Witt

Let me begin by saying that there isn’t an idea so simple that you can’t make it work by committing to it completely. For example – putting on a pair of sunglasses. When done in excruciatingly ultra-slow motion simultaneously by six people standing in a silent row, each exhibiting their own style, it can hold the audience’s attention rapt. The performers’ beachwear attire reflected the (non-existent) ocean theme which was explored by variously putting on sunglasses, diving and swimming, and fighting a gale – no beach or water required. Much of this was achieved at speeds that would exasperate a turtle. But here’s the thing – it’s not what you do but how you do it. Was this high art? No. Was it high concept? Probably not. But it was definitely original and possessed of an intelligence that demonstrated what was possible with the effective use of minimalism.

Each of these elements – the sunglasses, the swimming, the gale, had its own unique presentation which was made more complex by the individual variations provided by each performer. Put these features together – simple, slow, complex, and you can achieve a level of fascination that will focus the audience’s attention in a way that a stage-full of frenetic activity cannot. It’s the creative use of pace. A physical demonstration that less is more. Speed it up and it is mawkish and silly. But slow it down to just that precise point, and now it becomes interesting, even mesmerizing.

The performance was helped in no small part by intelligent blocking, re-aligning the performers for each new element, and a simple but very creative prop – an umbrella draped in yellow gauze that alternately represented sunshine and physically demonstrated the force of the wind with the assistance of a fan. The tight focus also allowed certain elements to stand out and create a little contrast, like some of the comic swimming and diving bits or rescues from the gale wind.

It’s incredibly difficult to hold an audience with minimalism over time. We simply don’t have the patience. But It Used to be an Ocean took it as far as it could, demonstrating both imagination and some real command of the process.

 

Yellow Sun Meet Moon

Choreographer: Liliana Gomez

Performer: Juls Tarango

There were multiple aspects to this performance but the one that was fixed in my memory was the beginning of the piece. The minimalist thread ran through there, with the first section of Juls Tarango’s performance, where she stood, feet together in the narrowest possible stance, and proceeded to move the rest of her body, torso undulating, arms waving and weaving in the air. Just that. Exploring motion without moving, if that makes any sense. Maximizing motion and minimizing distance. The tiniest of tiny dances. I was prepared to watch her explore the limits of that position for a while longer when she finally stepped out into the rest of her performance, moving gracefully through space and playing with shadows on the wall. I’m reasonably certain that Liliana Gomez did not have minimalism as part of her concept for the work, but she established that short, memorable, beginning sequence and by putting it out into the world for the audience, she made it accessible for interpretation – and for me, it embodied an aspect of minimalism that continued the through-line to these other works.

As an aside, I would just mention that, since the evening’s theme was the color yellow, reinforced by the title of this piece, I expected the performer’s costume, in this case a dress, to reflect that. It did not, but it was certainly fascinating. As an unenlightened male, I do not possess the ability to describe the exact color of that dress. I can only say with certainty that, in spite of the theme and the title, it was not yellow, but it was an amazing shade of a something hue.

 

Walls

Choreography: Nicole L. Olson

Reading: Nicole L. Olson

Performers: Nicole L. Olson, Amber Robins

Being a word guy, I have long been fascinated by the use of spoken word in dance. It always grabs my attention, but much of it fails to win my appreciation. Too often, there is no discernable connection between the narration and the movement – or we are given only fleeting glimpses of synchronicity. And yes, it’s incredibly challenging. Dance is not sign language. It does not translate exact words or thoughts, and the closer it comes to literalism, the more it distances itself from art. We are hardwired to understand the literal meaning of words we hear, but can only vaguely interpret physical movement. Thus, the problem with marrying spoken word to dance. However, on those occasions when an artist somehow gets it right, finds that magic alchemy, it can be profound.

Nicole Olson expressed her fascination with the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper and has here transformed that into her presentation of Walls. While she used an actual narration of the story, Olson took a unique approach to this genre by not trying to illustrate the narrative of the storyline with movement, but rather physically embody its emotional content. It was less dance and more the physicality of theater, in the way that an actor’s body language and facial expressions can convey the true meaning of a scene. More reaction than action.

In order to accomplish this, she had to invite this character, this stranger, into her body and allow it to live by feeding on her personal emotions, give it access to deeply ingrained instinctual movement. The resulting performance was not realistic, but it was absolutely authentic.

The story itself was a slow, meandering gothic tale. The narrator places us in a highly visualized antique setting that becomes progressively more moody – even spooky and creepy – largely through the device of her descriptions of the horrid yellow wallpaper in the room to which she is confined for her “recovery” from a persistent “nervous condition”. The narrator also seems somewhat unreliable, slowly disintegrating with clearly fantastic impressions of her physical and mental condition and her environment. All of this was being orchestrated by a well-meaning physician husband whose status and authority she bows to in a classical gender/power disparity. Demonstrating, I suppose, that you don’t have to be evil to be oppressive.

I was fascinated by the unique manner in which Olson chose to portray this story. I was never certain if this was dance, theater or performance art. Certainly, it was original. As she inhabited the mental state of the narrator, much of it was expressed through a profound stillness. Curled up on the single bed, hunched over with exhaustion, standing still and blank, facing the wall. If you think about it, it made sense. How else can you “dance” depression except through the interiority and immobility it induces?

The second character, performed by Amber Robins, was a mystery. In one moment, I thought she represented the husband, in others, an alter ego, in still others just a figment of imagination. Her presence gave the performance much-needed dimensionality but I couldn’t easily place her in the narrative. Obviously, there are clues that I missed.

As fascinated as I was with this performance, I was simply not physically capable of doing it justice. My exhaustion overwhelmed me and some key parts are still missing – particularly at the end where the narrator indicates that the woman, who was descending into a progressive madness, is stepping over a body. Whose body? How did it get there? I was, and still am, deeply chagrined by this obvious gap. This was a subtle, complex performance that deserved close attention, perhaps even multiple viewings. I should not, in all fairness, be reviewing it. But it lingers in my memory and was too important to ignore, and so all I have to offer is this imperfect commentary, a small attempt to say that this was innovative, important work, and should be acknowledged as such.

 

Summary

In fact, the entire evening reflected experimentation and risk taking. I chose to focus on the elements of minimalism, which I’m sure was never proposed as part of the theme, which I am reminded was a color. But audiences will have their way with the work, and it was the recurring instances of less-is-more that captured my imagination, each in its unique way – with Halley Willcox’s manipulation of pace, Liliana Gomez’s restriction of space, and Nicole Olson’s profound stillnesses. Each challenged conventional ideas of movement in dance and reminded us that choreographers are, above all, creative artists.

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