Company: Instinct Dancecorps
Choreographer: Jenny Gerena (in collaboration with the dancers)
Performers: Valerie Blake, Chanel Craig, Jay Garcia, Caleb Tarrant, Sheryl Powell, Paige Wind (Understudies: Edson Machin, Callista Mincks)
This was my favorite group piece of the evening. By far. I was really taken with it and astonished that the dancers had so much input into the choreography. Maybe that made them more invested – who knows? – but the result was just superb.
The low-angle lighting design, simple but dramatic, gave the piece a great look. This was drama, end to end. It wasn’t abstract as much as it was impressionistic. Slow and deliberate, every movement seemed to carry a message – make of it what you would. There was an overriding sense of some external danger shared by the ensemble. I thought I detected fear or at least an ominous sense of foreboding
An early lift, performed by Paige Wind during the opening, didn’t feel like it was there just for aesthetic effect. It felt supportive, protective, caring and helped establish the sensibility of the piece. The group was all about cohesion, whether it was the ensemble coming together in a compact shape, or one dancer carrying another, or two dancers sharing their weight a-la contact improv.
I had the sense that the ensemble had become an organism – one that moved together cohesively and protected its individuals. There was a sense of caring and physical, bodily connection and support – reinforced by a full overhead group lift. There were bursts of activity that continued to resolve back into a cohesive shape. A brief duet integrates itself back into the structure of the ensemble.
The pace was at times excruciatingly slow, but it was nonetheless mesmerizing. There was also a small, but well-crafted motif, when a young girl points fearfully at something unknown in the distance and is rescued by being pulled back into the group. This gesture, understated but powerful, is repeated at the end, as the group exits and she points back briefly at this ominous unknown.
When we talk about minimalism, it’s usually conceptual or abstract. Here, the movements are relatively simple – slow, deliberate, uncomplicated. But this is the true power of minimalism – in the context of those highly emotive production elements it elevates the piece to a whole different level. – even the small gestures were connected and seemed purposeful. And even though I hadn’t a clue exactly what that purpose was, I still felt it. This was overall very affecting – the dancers thoroughly committed and able to communicate their emotion, however amorphous, right through the audience.
This was a terrific piece. Stylistically unique and very effective. The Q&A suggested its genesis was somewhat random, developing and abandoning several iterations – but that trial and error produced something the company should be proud of. I really hope this lives on in some form. I’d certainly see it again.
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