In these days of post-postmodern dance (can I say that?), a good sense of composition –of craft- is hard to find. I’m beginning to be a little concerned with my own cursory image of “modern dance,” for when I need to reach into my head for a thumbnail portrait of today’s dance works, I pull out an image of an “edgy” multimedia-laden dance that, when I’m honest with myself, is loosely composed, largely uninteresting and ultimately forgettable.
Choreography, which is based on composition, depends on clear choices. It is precisely these choices that are lacking in much of today’s modern dance works. We see it all the time: a messy manoeuver, a thoughtless transition, repeated phrases as if to say, “I didn’t know what to do next!” Let’s face it: these are the signs of LCS: Lazy Choreographer’s Syndrome.
Two things were particularly refreshing to me when watching Shane O’Hara interpret six Daniel Nagrin solos at the Centre National de la Danse on Saturday. The first was the self-evident choices in the choreography, six solos dating from 1948 to 1970. I wondered to myself how long it had been since I had seen a work from the pre-postmodern era, and being someone who usually steers away from “dancey dance,” I was refreshed and pleased with Nagrin’s choreography. Every gesture, every facial expression had been clearly chosen, and in today’s context of loose contemporary dance, this was outstanding. Instead of hearing a lengthy, pieced-together speech, I was being presented with a simple, concise sentence.
The other notable detail was Shane O’Hara’s facial expressions, or, I should say, another clear choreographic choice. We all are familiar with the typical modern dance zombie stare– a look that declares, “I AM DOING MODERN DANCE.” So often it is the unchosen default for today’s choreography, and one often neglects the fact that a dancer’s eyes, brow and mouth are an entire new set of limbs and possibilities. The face is a part of the body that I don’t see much of in performances lately, and O’Hara was as skilled in his facial techniques as he was in his spinning and leaping.
This is not to say that a dance must employ facial expressions; a clear example is Shen Wei’s successfully abstract Rite of Spring. (Though, must every choreographer do a Rite of Spring?) Wei specifically chooses the void expressions on the dancers, who resemble not humans but soulless pawns in an unfeeling, abstract game of chess. Rather, I am simply reminding myself that the face is included in the big sac of choreographic material. “What are you going to do with the face?” I remember being asked in choreography class. “Where do you want me to look?” dancers often asked.
What’s more is that Nagrin’s expressive facial choices were far from excessive theatricality or mime. Especially in a piece like Wordgame, a Cartoon (an excerpt from The Peloponnesian War, 1968), where the cut-up and rearranged gestures were interspersed with maniacal facial distortions, all of which coherently commented on the squandering mess of the Vietnam War. (A piece that was not an irrelevant program choice…) The music, by Erik Salzman, was a fascinating score of atomic bomb audio clips, human grunts and electronic bleeps, indicative of the spliced analog recordings and sine wave beeps of early electronic music. And lo and behold, Nagrin had composed each element of the dance to a T, for in the last minute, his movements neatly coordinated with the irregular sound blurps –an impressive, clean detail.
In Strange Hero (1948), O’Hara embodies the mob-like character with gusto, tramping all over the stage to the pounding bass ostinato– fun, suspensful post-big-band jazz by Stan Keaton and Pete Rugolo. Yet instead of a straightforward narrative, Nagrin pieces together a gesture here and a fall to the floor there, a menacing grimace here and a smoky attitude there. Again, in a way that is not corny dancetheater, but wry commentary.
When asked at the later Q&A session about working largely with solo pieces, Nagrin said that where many choreographers feel isolated when working alone in a studio, he felt that by himself it was always crowded. The six solos I saw were entertaining and refreshingly concise. The sweet products of a tasty choreographic decisiveness.
22 novembre, 2007
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