FAILING IS AN OPTION, NOT REALITY
Three peas in a pod? Hardly. Three new dances differ. But count on Imagery ballet to come up with an adroit unifying element for three choreographers doing world premieres. This time, it was: Use projections, any way you want them (plus suggestions of the usual 20-to-25-minute length). And in movement, innovation and risk-taking should prevail, even if you fail.
So instead of three works heading off willy-nilly toward different nebulae, the current program had a link, with the same eight young, athletic dancers used throughout.
Besides imagination, Imagery’s other distinction is vacillating between the worlds of modern dance and modern ballet, leaping a chasm less friendly to most troupes. Strap on those toe shoes, or throw them out—both extremes work, as long as the dancers emerge unscathed and unbowed.
Amy Seiwert, head of Imagery, led off with her “Verses,” cleverly echoing the cross-brace beams on the walls with geometric angular thrusts of arms and legs. In the blink of an eye an ensemble of eight heaped dancers reaches toward the rafters—a snapshot lingering in the mind long after. Her lineups and combinations which are constantly shifting involved man-on-man lifts, dual pas de deux pairs, Rodin-like figures, and many novel moves and stretches. If these meant failing at choreography, please, bring ‘em on!
The lead couple in this inventive exercise was Austin Meiteen and Shania Rasmussen.
For Stephanie Martinez’s “Otra Vez” (Once More, or, Encore), endearing Spanish songs, castanets and classical guitar were in, the impetus being Picasso’s painting “The Old Guitarist.” Even though the pointe shoes were tossed out, various ballet moves were emphasized, offering meticulous detail, whimsy and trilling fingers—a true novelty. An elevated dancer made high thrusts of the legs to the rear, rising up like a scorpion tail, providing beauty and danger all in one.
The ninth performer here is a black hat tossed about and dancing a duo with the immensely limber curly-headed Meiteen. In the most unusual touch of all, a wavy projection twitches in perfect time with the music. (Credit video artist Ben Estabrook.)
Did Ben Needham-Wood ever fulfill some long-treasured dream of working in Amazon’s stockroom? His new work “All I Ever Knew” features some 50 packing boxes some 3 cu.ft. each stacked up on stage, knocked down, moved, restacked—to what avail? They have a mind of their own and also serve as scenery to hide performers. They part momentarily at the end to enable a couple to fall in love at first sight.
What it all means is mystifying. Needham-Wood gives us couples in love, controlling women, flirtation dances, and what may be mythology. We get Meiteen playing Narcissus, and a couple adding an Orpheus-and-Euridice segment with eyes shielded. All with wild party music. The choreographer’s yen for having three separate things going at once dilutes the focus and brings it closer to a ‘60s style happening.
Some experiments admittedly misfire. But overall, this imaginative program entitled “Sketch 9: Perspective” is a must-see, doubly so given the Bay Area’s all-too-predictable summer arts programming. In “Sketch” Seiwert’s octet of dancers have to be supremely athletic, limber and yes youthful, having to play these highly demanding pieces bending them into 1,001 pretzel shapes and odd twists four nights in a row without substitutions. Somebody, pass me a massage!!
The ODC Theater is a plain-vanilla box with basketball seating, lacking the raised stage permitting looking up at the dancers’ feet, not down. But the trade-off is that the performers come forward close enough to touch, with every nuance and beauty spot magnified and visible.
DANCE NOTES—This is the ninth annual experimental “Sketch” program of dance, masterminded by local wizard Amy Seiwert, now also the director of Sacramento Ballet….Choreographer Martinez has created works for a dozen other companies and has commissions for some seven others…Needham-Wood is an Emmy award winner and a longtime dancer with both “Sketch” and the Smuin Ballet.
Amy Seiwert’s experimental “Sketch 9: Perspective,” with a trio of world premiere dances nightly July 17-20. Music prerecorded. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., San Francisco. For info: (415) 863-9834 or go online.
